The Doors broke onto the scene in the late '60s with a "Carnival Music" sound. Jim Morrison takes you for a ride that could be your last. Follow the "Pied Piper" of Rock and Roll to your doom. The Merry go Round doesn't stop unless you can dislodge yourself and fly away. As Pamela Courson discovered the "Magic Ride" with Jim is short and addictively deadly.The Doors reflected the constant Jungle Warfare in Viet Nam - "The End", "The Musics Over" and several other tunes drag you down into the depths of despair - showing endless war and strife. Jim and his massive alcohol and drug addiction "Lit His Fire" alright, along with countless other lost souls.We survived the War and the Revolution and we're still here - we are the "Beautiful Friend" that Morrison sings about. Addiction took many of us and is still reaping it's deadly harvest. We were able to detach ourselves from Morrison and his Death Spiral - we survived to look back at his destruction along with those that followed him. Oliver Stone showed the uncontrolled Jim Morrison and the destructive power he wielded. No one could stop or prevent the eventual outcome. I however lived to learn from this legendary "Pied Piper".

I totally agree with several before me that at some point in the film, one forgets he is watching Val Kilmer play the late Jim Morrison. This is a marvelous performance by a gifted actor. His physical appearance and voice really capture the essence of one of the top five or six rock bands ever. There is lots of documentary footage of the doors because they came along when videotaping and filming were everywhere, so to capture a realistic display of performances in a film had too be good. We get to watch the guys slowly evolve. We get to see how Morrison held sway over the group. Ray Manzarek had an incredible talent of his own, and yet he kept being dwarfed by the charismatic lead singer. There were times when Morrison's performances were almost transcendent. The music is really good here as well.

According to According to *No One Here Gets Out Alive* by Danny Sugarman, that's pretty much the way Morrison acted in real life: A mean, fat,narcissistic, drunk. But that's true of many rock stars. If you were disappointed by how this movie depicts him, maybe you should choose better idols.Look up all the live footage of the performances of The Doors now available, and Jim Morrison generally does nothing but stand frozen at the microphone stand, crooning with his eyes closed. He was not much of a performer, and Val Kilmer was a far better Jim Morrison than Morrison ever was.Despite Stone's clumsy attempts at being artistic, this is one long soap opera.

First off, this review comes about 20 years too late. Yep! That's how much time has passed since this movie was released. At the time, Val Kilmer was actually popular. I wonder how many teenagers have actually heard of him now… The Doors is one of my favorite bands of all time, and the opening song of the movie, Riders on the storm still remains my favorite song. So, when the movie started with this tune, I really thought there could not be a better start. Regrettably, everything was less and less interesting after that. I get that Jim Morrison was a unique, crazy, and incomprehensible person. A man who seemed to lead a life with one only goal: to find death sooner rather than later. But not being able to understand this man doesn't mean that I should not be able to make sense of the movie. Yes, we get to see what Jim Morrison was probably like. But the movie is called "The Doors", and I would have wanted to find out a lot more about the other members of the band who were also unique musicians. They composed one of the greatest albums in the history of music in 6 days, and that part of their story, is what I really wanted to hear about. Unfortunately, Oliver Stone thought that dedicating 6 minutes to this subject was more than enough. Shame!As a Doors fan, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the concert parts and listening to what is obviously an amazing soundtrack, but as for the story telling, I thought it was mediocre at best. There's a reason why this movie is completely forgotten. Because, it just wasn't good enough.