A terrible film from a director who should know better

Rating: 1/10 (3 February 2003)

Spielberg has made some awful films in his long career (AI for one) but this is by far his worst. Its such a shame because the guy is obviously highly talented, doesn't need the cash, and should have the confidence in his own abilities and the audience not to need to stoop to Disney techniques in order to embellish a great, true story. So many things just didn't add up, particularly in some of the characterisations - the young girl's parents, for instance, just weren't the type to have thrown her out of the house when they found she was pregnant. No, reality really is better than fiction and all those things that Spielberg added in a naive attempt to interest the audience were just the things which turned them off. And, oh, what was that awful boring, long, pastiche of a title sequence at the front? Most of the audience were asleep, or talking, before they saw the first frame of the story. Hollywood yet again gets it wrong.