Spielberg Dishes out the Treacle

Rating: 1/10 (12 October 2017)

Rarely do I quit watching a movie, but I couldn't sit through this murky, confused saga, so perhaps my review is unfair. However, credibility was shot from the get-go, as Lincoln bids heartwarmingly paternal individual farewells to departing soldiers, whilst they proceed to recite from memory his 'Fourscore' address as they march off into the distance. It was Spielberg at his treacliest.
After that, you get art direction so dark you can barely see what's going on. Why is everything in silhouette, even in daylight? It's all black on black. Finally, the script is awful. Conversations pop out of nowhere, there's no flow whatever. People tell random stories or deliver impassioned soliloquies with no lead up or character identification, so you don't know or care what they're trying to say. Lincoln gets to tell some of the most boring and inappropriate anecdotes of all, to the point where other characters leave the room.
He shares deeply private philosophical thoughts with random clerks, servants, in fact he even talks to the floor, and there's condescending background music to let you know when you should be moved with admiration. If these were genuine quotes, I'd like to see the footnotes. A particularly egregious gem is when he quotes Euclid on like things self-evidently being equal to each other. This from an ancient culture completely based on slavery! It was math, Abe, not social science! The language is formal and dated, as it should be. Now, I have no problem following Shakespeare: but characters in Shakespeare speak from the story line.
And finally, there's that terrible wig. Poor Tommy Lee Jones! I looked up pictures of Thaddeus Stevens and no, he did not look that dopey. I gave up on this dreary film after the Euclid story.