Waste Of Time

Rating: 4/10 (10 July 2003)

"Gangs of New York" wasted my time as I viewed it. It was long, slow, and had little of interest in it. I had rented it with the hopes that a lot of action and a good storyline would be contained within the movie. Sadly, it let me down.
I should have known it would be a yawner when the starting fight bored me. All slow motion, fake looking blood, and not at all exciting. It proved to be a movie that had a lot of drag to it and I find my mind wandering at times and myself just taking in the whole look of the film, the sets, the clothing, the background players, ect.
I also should have been prepared when I saw the first error in the movie right at the beginning of the film! The cut on "Priest" Vallon's face kept changing sides on his face and appearing/disappearing. I noticed it on the first viewing so I know that it is obvious. If the first minutes contain an error like that, that is so noticable, then it shows that the movie will not be that great. It shows some slackness on the moviemaker's side when this sort of thing happens.
The acting was decent...I just wish the actors where in a better movie than this. Cameron Diaz really stands out in my mind because she did a very good performance in this film...and she was hardly recognizable as the blonde, peppy, bubblehead she usually plays in films.
I did like the look of "Old New York" and the clothing. It's just too bad the story is not as good as the whole "look" of the movie. I am glad I waited for it to come out on video/DVD to see because I would have felt I had wasted money if I had gone to see it in the theatre. It was a true waste of my time.