A great coming of age feature that will keep you interested till the credits roll...

Rating: 8/10 (8 October 2007)

Lets start by saying, I honestly liked this flick. I also am very tickled at the demographic female/male breakdown on the vote score..nearly all the ladies rated at or above a 9. Personally, let me lay down the downers first. It just seemed to drag on around the second hour mark so much so that I wanted to go use the bathroom but I didn't and I will expand on that in a bit. It was also a bit clichéd and painted the main character as a "savior" of sorts which may or may have not been the case. The positives though are abundant. The scenes are well laid out and the scenery can be spectacular hence why I chose to punish the bladder. I am a sucker for any refresher on the coming of age/Catcher in the Rye/On the Road theme and thus wanderlust is certainly welcome. I also thought that as a paradigm of how to step back from the frenetic touch of the modern world it did wonderfully and we could all walk away learning a lesson or two though probably not going to that extreme. Kudos to Sean Penn and Emile...great job...