A boring Masterpiece

Rating: 3/10 (6 February 2013)

A friend who saw this movie told me, 'There are some great scenes, great acting, and set design but the movie never really comes together.' My friend was right, but he didn't explain the reason why this movie didn't come together. Simply put, it's the storytelling that has failed here.
Years ago when I was taking screen writing classes in college I remember hearing from teachers (and then later on in my own study) to avoid writing scripts with only talking heads. If you're going to have a script with mostly talking then there needs to be other action going on in the background to make it more interesting. There is a reason for this in writing and Lincoln proves this perfectly. If you have a script with only talking heads and nothing else going on, what you are left with is a boring script. This is a two and a half hour movie and three quarters of it at least are talking heads. There's one scene in the movie where Lincoln is about to tell a story (Again!) and someone in the room hurries up and leaves. I felt exactly the same way. Please don't bore me with another verbose story.
The problem is this is a movie, and the story in a movie is supposed to be dramatized not vocalized like this is. If I had wanted to read a book about Lincoln I would have done so, but I came to see movie and expected to see a visual dramatization of the story. We didn't get one unfortunately.
Instead we got movie about one of the popular presidents in US history, with excellent set design and costume, and a brilliant performance by Day Lewis. People praise this movie because of this and unfortunately they are blinded by it not seeing that there is a very poorly written script underneath. Regardless of whether this movie is about a great man or that it has a great message, the fact of the matter is the storytelling is atrocious and it fails as a movie because of this.
Shame on all the critics who praised this garbage and the academy for nominating it for so many awards. Most importantly, shame on Spielberg. You were better than this, but maybe not anymore...