Civilization sucks? Not in my book...

Rating: 3/10 (25 May 2001)

Okay, so here it is, the ultimate "Anarchy rules" movie of the late 90s. I had heard a lot about the film and was very eager to finally see it. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in nearly every bit - I thought the movie was sometimes boring, sometimes way to violent and sometimes plain silly.
But first for the good parts: Great cinematography and a really surprising point at the end when Edward Norton learn something about himself... it was this final change of pace that kept me from giving this movie a "1 out of 10" rating...
But now for the worst parts:
Incredibly idiotic monologue sequences. Edward Norton keeps on babbling about whatever you do not want to hear. Meaningless chatter which really starts getting on your nerves after a short while.
Gratuitous violence. Excessive portrayals of men beating on other men already lying helpless on the floor. Now, this might have been one important point the film wanted to show, that people tend to be cruel to each other once the barriers in the mind have fallen down - but well, I found out that I just was appalled by this and could see no point in repeatedly seeing bloody people being delivered to a hospital...
Unbelievable story developments. Suddenly, practically everybody seems to be a member of the Fight Club. They are not only everywhere, they are getting more and more aggressive in their attempts of destroying society. Things are getting out of hand - I had a hard time swallowing what the director wanted us to believe here...
All in all, as I said in the beginning, a very disappointing movie with a splendid basic idea - the point I was talking about that changed the whole perception of what happened before. This point somehow reminded me of the "Sixth Sense", but it was not administered in such a brilliant fashion, though some scenes of the film made more sense in the aftermath. Still, as a whole I did not like it, the good parts came to late to save it.