Suspenseful but amateurish, illogical and pointless

Rating: 5/10 (19 December 2016)

This seems like a love it or hate it film because of the reveal and ending, which I won't give away. The entire premise of the movie can be summed up in one sentence. Is the strange man who saves the wounded lady an insane psychopath or is he really the brilliant savant who has saved the lady from an unspeakable disaster?
Unfortunately to me this film felt like it was designed to prolong answering that question for 100 minutes. I was never into Lost or any other of JJ Abrams TV programs but now I understand his forte. It is in telling stories designed to go on interminably with endless reveals. The problem with this one is that the reveals were sometimes illogical, unnatural and forced. There was a noticeable stilted, awkward manner in which each subplot progresses.
One example is a scene with keys. Normally a person who realizes there is a difficult situation abound would wait for an opportune moment that would not invite suspicion. But here a seemingly inopportune time is presented as an opportunity. It's as if Abrams said "we need a scene with suspense here to prolong the film" and it succeeds in doing only that.
From my perspective, this film is just an overly long, pointless tease which is apparently Ambrams' trademark. Goodman plays his part as well as can be expected and there are some amusing moments. The actors do what they can with their roles but it's clear they are following a script, sometimes feeling as though this could have been a stage play. While I've seen worse, this has zero replayability factor because it's a one trick pony and all you want to know is where is this story really going. And like many others, I felt that it really wasn't worth the time investment. If you feel that the film is unrealistic and artificial early on, chances are you'll feel the same way throughout.