2:20 Music Video

Rating: 1/10 (8 October 2007)

I squirmed almost from the pretentious opening credits. The soppy music, the self-conscious titles, the interminable wait for the film to actually begin ...
The first sight of the lead: a handsome, golden boy from Hollywood. An actor, "indicating" like crazy instead of just doing.
And what followed was a tedious, two-hour and twenty-minute music video.
If a superb book had not been the "inspiration" for this dud, it never would have made it past its first studio reader. Jon Krakauer's gritty story of a confused idealist was turned into clichéd, sentimental mush about a Johnny Appleseed who enriched the lives of all the stereotyped characters he encountered.
It was the typical, corrupt Hollywood treatment, but without Hollywood production quality. Most of the beautiful scenery was perfunctorily photographed, and the pacing was atrociously slow.
I kept hoping it would improve, but it actually got worse and worse, right up to drawn-out, hackneyed ending and self-congratulatory final credits.
Chris McCandless and Jon Krakauer deserved better.