Loses Steam Halfway Through

Rating: 6/10 (23 February 2014)

I haven't had the best of luck with most of the critically-acclaimed movies of 2013. Some I thought were good but overrated and others I absolutely hated. So far, I have yet to see one that blew me away. Sadly, "Her" is no exception. I did like the film and admire its artistry to an extent. But ultimately it didn't move me the way it apparently has many other people. So I was left with a deflated feeling of "ok, that was that." It's not a film I will watch again anytime soon, if ever. I liked the acting. I had no problems with anyone's work. I also liked the future tech. It was very well done and some of the more plausible glimpses of near-future technology I've seen in a movie.
I enjoyed the first hour of the story a lot. As it went past that I began to feel fatigued by the entire concept and I could see how it was going to end. Basically you have a movie that is two hours and about 95% of that is a conversation between Joaquin Phoenix and a disembodied voice (Scarlett Johansson). That, to me, is a limited concept that you can only toy around with for so long before it starts to wear on one's patience. I knew where it was going. I knew Samantha would move on/break up with Theodore. I knew the other OSes would do the same with their users. I knew that he and Amy would end up together in some manner. This was all telegraphed midway through the movie yet it goes on for another hour. I enjoyed the film but I felt like it really could have been better. Cut the length by maybe 30 minutes and speed up the events of the second half and it would have been greatly improved.