Mind-bendingly stupid

Rating: 3/10 (28 October 2005)

I read some of these comments and I'm totally floored. The acting was horrid and forced, mostly due to the director creating scenes and instructing his actors to respond in completely unrealistic ways, such as when the parents of the "lost" children simply stand around staring at the assembled children until, after an eternity, one parent recognizes their kid. Um, yeah, right. Nobody would shout out a name, right? None of the kids recognize their own freaking parents. And this movie is full of moments like this.
The Japanese come off almost like clownish figures, the Chinese as mere backdrops in their own country. The set pieces are ridiculous and none of this is even remotely close to actual history. I don't care if this is told from "the boy's perspective." That's not an excuse for lazy, unfocused, and completely unrealistic work. OK, so it's not supposed to be realism. It's "surrealism." Well, it fails on that level too as it doesn't produce a sense of wonder or fascination, but rather a sense of endless irritation and boredom as scenes go on and on, or simply cut to another unrelated scene. If Spielberg was shooting for some kind of "war as seen from a kid's point of view" he really blew it, unless we're to believe children are on a permanent happy acid trip.
Scored like a soaring Disney kid's flick and sanitized to the point of being an insult, this movie is worthless. Another example of Spielberg's total inability to cover serious subjects with anything other than the mentality of a semi-autistic child. Jim's transformations are completely phony, based on nothing more than the script. Annoying English boy turns into bad-acting English boy.
Don't let the high ratings fool you. You have been warned.