A mind-blowingly bad movie

Rating: Null/10 (30 January 2004)

I tried to watch this on cable, but I kept getting annoyed and finally disgusted and turned it off. What a piece of tripe this is. I have no idea what the folks who rated it highly were smoking, but it is surely one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.
The concept is insultingly bad. A kid working as a janitor solves a highly sophisticated math problem? And not just any old college, no. It has to be M.I.T. Yep, I'm sure that happens every so often. From this brilliant premise the movie goes rapidly downhill. Violence, ubiquitous cursing, infatuation with cigarette smoking, social ineptness - ah, the life of the troubled-yet-brilliant youth. How many movies like this have been made?

I found the acting to be smarmy. Cocky and irrelevant, just like the characters, the plot, the writing - the whole movie. It keeps trying to put on the Hollywood-haughty airs and tries to pass itself off as something special. In fact, there's no point at all. You don't care about the kid; he's just either too sharp or too weak, and he can slip between either of them. With all these fake antics you finally just give up even caring the slightest bit. Maybe these actors are talented to some extent, but that is all wasted.
It's one I'm glad I didn't waste my money seeing in the theaters. Don't believe the hype. It is one to avoid.