Genie in a bottle

Rating: 7/10 (29 January 2008)

It wasn't that deep- quite entertaining though, as I usually like movies about an exceptionally talented character, featuring some mindgames, or situations where the character makes use of his "powers". Yet the sentimental issues the script was struggling to make Will's character more complex with, were just too artificial. I mean you have this boy, great at everything, and then he's voluntarily living his life like a loser, so that he can stay faithful to his friends? And at the end -he goes after his girlfriend, wow, like that's something really deep. In fact, I don't usually make much of a philosophy about movies; in this case there are some interesting ideas, like the one that no matter how much knowledge you acquire, that can't equal true experience, but 1. they're not really new or original, just OK and 2. they are generally connected to Will as a genius, an ultimately unrealistic situation. So as I said, it's cool to watch, but not that thoughtful as it probably aims to be. One last thing- a little goof which made me feel really awkward about the seriousness of the movie makers. I stopped the tape to see the problem written on the board in the hallway- and it took me about 10-15 seconds to solve it. It was hilarious- the problem was to write a simple 3*3 matrix and do some of the most basic, basic operations with it. Not even a problem, an easy exercise- for a 10 year old. And the second problem- I didn't even have to stop the tape there, I mean come on- a problem on which the whole crew of the professor worked for 2 years-2 years!!!- how on earth could be possibly solved with a couple of drawings?? and not a single mathematical symbol?? A couple of simple graphs, that was all. This was so embarrassing it made me seriously reconsider my appreciation of the movie. Not that it is significant- but how hard can it be to get a real mathematical problem-not the the prime-number-formula but Anything which cannot be solved within seconds, and barely Looks like a problem. Not to mention that after this episode any praise of Will's talents was kind of feeling stupid.