The Epic with nothing really Epic.

Rating: 4/10 (23 August 2010)

This movie should have been great, should have been a classic and it should have been Epic. It was not. The original, with a limited budget and quite frankly silly actors, was still a great movie. It told it's story well.
This version on the other hand had a huge budget, some very fine actors and yet it lacks in almost every aspect except CGI. It seems all action blockbusters these days have no real substance other than their effects.
The script is the poorest aspect of this film. Even the lines which were supposed to be Epic and the big lines of the movie did not pay off. The movie jumps around from place to place with no cohesion. There seems to be no real motivation for most of the characters to be doing what they are doing and many seem just thrown in there for the sake of it. Sam Worthington impressed me in Avatar, but is completely lackluster in this movie. His facial expressions and his way of delivering the rather poor lines was pretty awful. Gemma Arterton has been thrown in for eye-candy and her lines were also painfully performed.
None of the other actors in this movie had any decent lines and so their performance was also rather poor. This movie doesn't sag in the middle, it sags the whole way through.
The CGI and action sequences were very good, but they are few and far between. They hold your attention during their duration, but then it returns to it's painful to watch story.
As previously stated, with the large budgets, good source material and some very fine actors in this movie, it should have been great. It should have been Epic. But, instead was actually very poor. Even for a no-brains-required action summer blockbuster.
There are rumours a COTT 2 is in the works. If I could ever request anything from it's makers, is to hire some decent writers, get a decent script and work on the story before a CGI computer is even turned on.
4/10