Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Ian (Flash Review)Where do I even start describing this? At its core this is a detective thriller as a police inspector is on the trail of a recent random crime wave. As clues emerge, they lead to a man who is inside an insane asylum; that's strange. This man's scribbling writings are detailed accounts of the actual crimes that just occurred. How can this be!? There is a lot more to the story which weaves through many characters and unusual scenes that are all very intriguing. The cinematography is striking and there are smart uses of various camera angles and the film stock is rich. There are several scenes with double negative characters. One scene amazed me as visually transparent person physically handed a 'real' person a stack of papers. Very cool in 1933 and even today! The story is unique and even has a car chase, explosions and booby-traps.

disinterested_spectator Sometimes a book or a movie gets more praise than it deserves because it was banned somewhere. And what could be better for a movie than to have been banned by Joseph Goebbels himself, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany! Other than that, there is no explanation for why anyone thinks this movie is any good.If "Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler" (1922) was over the top, "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" is absurd. The title character went insane in the first movie and was confined to an insane asylum. Then, Hofmeister, a criminal who once was a police detective, but was cashiered for bribery, goes mad out of fear of Dr. Mabuse. By the end of the movie, Dr. Baum, who runs the asylum, goes mad as well and has to be confined. But it does not stop there. The plot is so outrageous as to make one think the movie itself was produced by a madman.For starters, while Dr. Mabuse is in the insane asylum, he still manages to run a criminal organization, planning crimes down to the last detail. His motives are as mad as he is. Whereas in the first movie, he simply wanted power and the pleasure of manipulating the lives of others, in this movie he wants to drive the whole world mad by getting people hooked on drugs, which he supplies for free, and by causing so much terror and destruction that civilization will collapse, leaving nothing behind but crime as a way of life.Mabuse communicates with his henchmen by willing his thoughts onto a record, which plays when he so wills it, while a cardboard image of himself sits behind a curtain, casting a shadow. Do you dare ask how this curtain, cardboard image, and record player came to be set up in this room where criminals go to get their orders when commanded to do so by a piece paper with a typewritten message on it? Why, Mabuse just wills it all into place!Things get a little easier for Mabuse when he dies and wills his spirit into Dr. Baum, so now he has another body to occupy that can leave the asylum. But he loves the record gimmick so much that when Dr. Baum wants his servant to think he is in his quarters, the record player is turned on whenever someone wiggles the door handle, causing it to play the message, "I do not wish to be disturbed."Kent, a man who killed his girlfriend and her lover and went to prison for it, is forced by economic circumstances into Mabuse's criminal organization. Together with Lilli, the woman he loves, he decides to go straight. But before he can make it to the police station, he and Lilli are captured and brought to the room with the curtain, the cardboard image, and the record player. After the door is locked behind them, the record tells them they will never leave the room alive. Eventually, Kent and Lilli pull back the curtain and discover the setup. Then they hear ticking, the sound of a time bomb. What better way to have a couple of people killed than to blow up your own headquarters! But when you can will yourself into another body, will your thoughts onto a record, will your thoughts through a typewriter onto a piece of paper, and will an entire setup consisting of record player, curtain, and cardboard image, and finally will a time bomb into existence as well, then I suppose it is child's play to will the whole setup into existence somewhere else after you destroy it with that time bomb just to kill two people.But all is not lost. We can tell ourselves that this movie was an attempt by Fritz Lang to warn us of the danger of Adolf Hitler and that will make the movie profound somehow.

funkyfry This film was famously banned by the nazi party, and Lang beat a quick retreat from Berlin after hearing the news. To some extent we can see why -- the film depicts a criminal gang, run by a ruthless maniac who wants to use industrial terrorism to strike fear into the population and ultimately gain control. Sounds familiar? I guess Goebbels thought so too.It's an interesting film, poised as it is partway between his silent career and his future talking film career in America. The film features a recurring character (Commissioner Lohmann) from his previous masterwork "M", and also the same kind of fascination with technology that was present in the first "Mabuse" film and in "Spies" and "Metropolis." This would show up less frequently in his American films, but "Cloak and Dagger" certainly is brethren to this film. It also features some really startling car chases that are a more elaborate version of what he had done in "Metropolis." Some of his expressionist devices are quite startling, especially Mabuse as a ghost with his huge pale eyes, and the way Dr. Kramm's (Theodor Loos) head is framed against the rushing trees almost looks as if we're seeing inside the fabric of his brain. The film also shows up Lang's weaknesses, specifically his inability to make the "heroic" characters in the film convincing or two- dimensional. Gustav Diessl is barely adequate as Tom Kent, whose name is as dull and straightforward as his character, and Wera Liessem's Lilli, the love interest, is a study in poor acting and stale characterization. But the film's a winner, because even all these many years later you are sure to see something that you've never seen before in a film. Lang's visual sensibility and his excellent editing move the film forward like a mack truck. Klein-Rogge is as chilling and otherworldly as ever, and his criminal madman in an asylum was surely an inspiration for many future film villains right up to the present day (some of his lines of dialog were clearly lifted for Nolan's "Dark Knight"). I think the film is slightly unbalanced by the policeman (Otto Wernicke) being given more screen time than either Mabuse or the ostensible hero of the film, but why quibble? It's stood the test of time and will surely be thrilling people when a lot of the big blockbusters of our day have been forgotten.

melvelvit-1 Could Dr. Mabuse, long confined to an asylum for the criminally insane, also be the mysterious mastermind whose gang is terrorizing the city? Inspector Lohmann is determined to find out in a visually startling, Expressionistic thriller that unspools like a cliffhanging serial. Director Fritz Lang's uniquely Teutonic vision blends Gothic horror with tabloid crime and the megalomaniacal Dr. Mabuse is another kind of genius ...as in the anti-Christ. His plans for the human race include global chaos via an "empire of crime" -in other words, evil for evil's sake, an anarchistic philosophy worthy of the Marquis De Sade. It's also a death wish in mankind's collective subconscious and a potent prism that can be played for laughs as in John Waters' FEMALE TROUBLE where "crime is beauty" or as an all-too-real phenomenon like Charles Manson's "Helter Skelter". The film was banned in Nazi Germany (what were they afraid of?) and has the kind of diabolical villainy that never goes out of style. It's also a (not too) distant relative of the German krimi and possibly James Bond. Highly recommended.