Completely and utterly absurd; Fincher's most disappointing film...

Rating: 6/10 (11 February 2015)

As always, please pardon the incorrect use of parentheses below--IMDb doesn't allow brackets for some highly bizarre and illogical reason:
6 of 10 (for respectable acting, a solid score, great direction, and moderate entertainment value (zero of ten for the "story"))
This film (and likely the book it was based upon) was clearly "designed" for people of average intellect and appreciation of true storytelling skill--it's just that "simple." To be sure, the first hour is somewhat promising, but the film quickly goes off the rails the moment it begins, in explicit detail (leaving *nothing* of the story to the imagination), describing just how this apparent psychopath (hmmm...incredibly silly character arc) went about pulling off her perfect crime.
The entire time I viewed these sequences, I believed that they were purely Affleck's character's fantasies, or perhaps visions of a future retelling of what had happened that he'd imagined as he goes. Alas, the story, as it is told, leaves absolutely *nothing* to mystery, clearly indicating that the target audience of this *patently absurd, unintelligent, unimaginative, and tired* "story" was the lowest common denominator (no surprise, then, that it's currently in the top 250 (see Marvel and Nolan films for reference: the average person has no appreciation of storytelling prowess)).
If you're expecting something of intelligence, look elsewhere--you will be disappointed. We've seen this film, in superior form, many, many times, and Fincher's typically high-quality direction alone isn't enough to propel the lack of intellectual content on display here above "below average." (It's also at least thirty minutes too long--you'll regret having spent 2.5 hours of your life on this humdrum "caper.")