A gigantic waste

Rating: 1/10 (12 February 2003)

I finally got past the bad vibes I've had about this movie and went to see it today. I cleared my head and watched it in an empty theater.

Not since I forced myself through the full version of Heaven's Gate have I struggled harder just to get through a film without committing the full trifecta of falling asleep, laughing at things not intended to be funny and fighting to stay afloat on a sea of suffocating boredom.
Finally, the third act collapses under the weight of too many half-baked ideas and a simple plot resolution that should have come an hour earlier - all concerning characters I cared for about the same as I care about my neighbor's monthly water bill.
What a gigantic waste. Ugly, unappealing, unoriginal, predictable to the nth degree and a beautiful spring day down the drain. A few months ago I thought The Two Towers was flawed. Compared to this catastrophe it's The Godfather, Part II.
Cameron Diaz has been the mark of disaster for me in 2002. Until now, I thought The Sweetest Thing was the worst film of the year. Now I'm not so sure. At least The Sweetest Thing isn't nauseatingly full of itself and knows fairly well what a dungheap it is.
As for Day-Lewis, he was ok but not remarkable. Over the top and two-dimensional. About five times he seemed to be trying his best wacky-DeNiro.
Well, allow me to put another notch on MY club: Scorsese hasn't made a decent film since 1990. He is apparently washed up (a 13 year slump? that's someone else's whole career!).
Maybe there is hope: I thought Polanski was washed up, too.

Apparently not.