It should have been better....

Rating: 7/10 (3 December 2007)

With all of the star power this movie possesses, with its viable plot, an emotional story, impressive scenery and even better cinematography, why isn't this movie better than it might have been? Two words; Brad Pitt, I doubt if he even rehearsed with script-in-hand, if at all. Either that or there was some gosh darn awful editing involved, although my suspicions prefer to settle on the former. I believe the problem to be one of a lack of motivation on the actor's part. Mr. Pitt enjoys a "super-star" status on Hollywood's "A" list, although I believe he has fallen victim to rumors of his own legend, in regard to his talent or lack thereof, in this case. I can see this happening if an actor's head becomes too big for his own hat. I don't dislike Mr. Pitt as an actor, he possesses a very pretty face, only there's no correlation to acting ability, yet I have enjoyed some of the films he's made in spite of the "pretty face". If he had even attempted to better nail-down his performance, I believe this film could have been near excellent, as it stands now it is a bit better than average.
The reason I've since changed my mind about this film's worth is thus; Mr. Pitt plays the role of one, Tristan Ludlow. Yet how can he play the part effectively when he can't even pronounce his own name correctly? It's not as if someone else mispronounces it, HE mispronounces it himself. At the close of a letter to his father in which Tristan's voice is narrating, he closes by saying his name....only he says: Tristian, not Tristan, as if his name was "Christian", only with a "T" instead of the "Ch"...well, that's the point I lost my respect for this cinematic disappointment, I now laugh every time I come across it, I don't even stick around long enough to hear him mangle it once again...LOL...EVERY other character in the film pronounces his name with great accuracy, why he can't eludes me, after all it's only his own name, LOL...oh well, if you care to see a movie that has an impressive rise on the emotional scale, only to see it tumble down blindly after he reads the letter, then by all means see this film. I can't help but laugh whenever I see it though, if you believe you can still enjoy it knowing this, be my guest, it is a decent enough story...on further thought, perhaps they should have changed his character's name to Bob or something simple like that, LOL....