Tried and tested

Rating: 4/10 (8 July 2013)

I'm not here for a sound bite, I've now seen this twice and although the scenery and in some cases makeup and costumes are beautiful the movie itself is a bit of a mess.
I had no problem following the individual threads, but some of them were vastly better than others. Anytime Jim Broadbent was on the screen it started to feel a little like a poor Carry On film (UK members will remember these) although he does a decent enough job and to his credit his character was on of the few I really clicked with.
Hugo Weaving is, as always giving it his all, sometimes a bit too much in fact, but his acting, even in drag is more convincing than that of Hanks or Berry.
The film though isn't let down by acting it's let down by the mish-mash editing, I genuinely felt like they could have made several short films instead as I really couldn't have cared what happened to any of the characters, especially as we reached the end, at which point I wanted them all to die for boring me silly for the past 2 hours 45 mins.
It only got worse on the second viewing a few weeks later, as I was sure I'd missed something. This is a Marmite film, you'll either love it or hate it and you'll probably know within the first 30 minutes whether it's worth continuing, if you find you haven't clicked with any characters by that point I suggest doing the ironing, picking your nose or sucking on ice cubes instead, it'll be far more enjoyable.