"21" ways to make a disappointing movie

Rating: 2/10 (3 August 2008)

1) A best-selling book "Bringing Down The House" adapted into a movie with a completely differently storyline, but keeping the skeleton of the book intact.
2) In the book, the leads are Asian. In the movie, the leads are a bland Tobey MacGuire wannabe and yet another bland blonde "actress", both look too old to be college students.
3) Laurence Fishburne completely wasted.
4) Kevin Spacey in his element.
5) You don't feel invested in any of the characters, especially the Tobey wannabe.
6) Believe it or not, there are nerds that do have girlfriends. Not all nerds are fat, spewing corny one-liners, and obsessed with some stupid contest no one gives a hoot about.
7) "Winner, winner, chicken dinner?" Dumbest. Catchphrase. Ever.
8) The book states that disguises and aliases were used. But we don't see the disguises till the last card-counting scheme towards the end.
9) What's with the team going to the SAME casino every time? That makes no sense.
10) Fishburne's character eyeballing the Tobey wannabe EVERY TIME? If Fishburne knew that Tobey wannabe with working with Spacey, why not just go after Spacey and leave the kid out of this?
11) Casino security beating the crap out of card-counters?
12) You're an MIT student, brilliant, and the best part-time job you can get is a clothing store that pays minimum wage?
13) Does EVERY film have to have a romantic hook-up (fake or otherwise), especially when the twosome have absolutely no chemistry?
14) Who hides casino CASH winnings in a drop ceiling? And how did Spacey managed to find the money?
15) Mom offers to help pay for Harvard and Tobey wannabe turns it down? Is he crazy? Who turns down money from Mom?
16) The bag switcheroo? Tobey wannabe double-crossing Spacey at the end? Those felt tacked-on at the last minute.
17) Jealous teammate tries to sabotage the scheme to get Tobey wannabe booted out? Been there, seen that a million times before.
18) Tobey wannabe claims to do it for the money, but it's obvious that he's really doing it to be close to the bland blonde. Dude, she's so not worth it!
19) Notice that Spacey and the bland blonde have been in three films together (21, Beyond The Sea, and Superman Returns)?
20) The background whizzing by while the actor/actress in the foreground moves either slowly or not moving at all is overdone and gets dizzy after a while.
21) This 2-hour movie felt like a 22-hour movie.