Very boring, ignore the hype

Rating: 2/10 (28 May 2014)

I made my account just to warn people away from this movie. After hearing all the awards it won and all the acclaim it received, I decided to give it a shot. I was more than a little disappointed, and I will never again be deceived that a movie winning an award means anything.
12 Years a Slave had the potential to be a great movie, with an interesting storyline about a free Northern black man being captured and sold into slavery down South.
With a plot like that, the story has basically written itself. Instead, they decided to solely rely on the plot line and not actually put any effort into the movie at all. The characters were horrible. I couldn't care less about the main character the entire movie. The entire point of getting back to his robotic, emotionless family still eludes me. It was obvious to me neither he nor they cared at all about one another, other than him saying he wanted to see his wife and children. Other characters pop in and out of the story without any true purpose. An overseer that tries to kill him, then runs away; another overseer that saved him, for no reason, just disappears from the story; the indentured servant that betrays him, vanishes; his first master (a nice white guy), gives him a violin then is never seen again. If any of these characters were cut out of the movie, NOBODY WOULD NOTICE.
The fact that he was a violinist could have been used to add more flavor to the story. Somehow it doesn't. He is forced to play at some parties, but there is never a point to him having a violin. The violin is constant throughout the movie, but there is never any reason for it. It is never used for anything interesting, its just there. It could have been used to show that he was slowly losing passion for something he loved, which may have been the intention for it, but was a complete failure. He destroys it near the end, maybe that was when he gave up hope? I can't tell that he ever cared about living in the first place. With the violin in place I can't help but try to compare this movie to the Pianist, maybe they should have taken notes from it.
There are multiple random scenes that are drawn... out.. for.... too.. freaking... long. Prepare to spend several minutes staring at his face, waiting for something to happen. Go ahead and fast forward if you can, nothing will happen.
So far the movie has neglected to develop any interesting or relevant characters, as well as an interesting back story. The movie instead focuses on how bad slavery is. Just in case you missed the memo. Now, I understand with this kind of movie there is going to be traumatic events that happen to the characters, I think everyone expects that. But after the initial 10 minute whipping scene, followed by lots of racial slurs, mothers and children being separated, followed by 2 rape scenes, followed by more whipping and beating for no reason and general disregard for human life, I couldn't help but feel like it the movie was trying to tell me that slavery was bad, and that was the ENTIRE purpose for the movie. Yes, slavery is bad.... I already knew without you telling me. I'm not sure if I have ever met someone who thought otherwise, who is this movie making an argument against? There is a difference between having it as a setting/theme to your movie and shoving it down your audience's throat. This movie should take a lesson from The Pianist, Schindler's List etc. that use similar themes of oppression but are still great movies.
In conclusion, the characters were horrible and forgettable, nothing interesting happens, and slavery is bad (obviously). That's all you should know about this movie. 2/10 only because this an interesting period of American history, and I wish more movies were put in this era (but not this one).