"Pride and Prejudice" was awesome - this was just plain annoying!

Rating: 1/10 (8 January 2008)

I was deeply disappointed, having forced myself through the whole length of this movie (I should have left after the first boring-to-death 45 minutes). The bitter lesson to be learned for me: an excellent team (Joe Wright as director and Keira Knightley as leading actress in "Pride and Prejudice") gives you no guarantee that their next movie is anything alike in quality!
There was no chemistry between Keira Knightley and James McAvoy worth mentioning, like they were two strangers who are supposed to appear at the same scene (to achieve this: No Acting Required, as Robert Mitchum used to say). The narration of the whole story was erratic, and the motives of the figures remained nebulous. It is hard to find out what the whole story is about, what the meaning of the figures' action were (hopefully the novel is better, but I haven't read it yet, and in my opinion a movie shouldn't require the knowledge of the book in order to be understood).
Last but not least I found it extremely embarrassing how the movie failed to connect its narration with the cruelties of the World War. I couldn't help feeling that the war background was just abused as a picturesque stage to let James McAvoy stumble around.