An intelligent exercise in non-committal...

Rating: 1/10 (29 December 2012)

It disturbs me when I think of how much money Steven Spielberg made for this. A glorified stage play, from the bottom to the top. Boring from start to finish. I hope to God Sally Field gets the Oscar she deserves for keeping this dull, talkie movie from being completely unwatchable. Her performance was the only true bright spot in an otherwise dreary, but intelligent exercise in non-committal. The Civil War scene was just Spielberg trying to scare the audience without committing and it was as transparent as glass.
How did the director of Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan (not to mention War of the Worlds) drop the ball on the most important and compelling American subject of all time, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SLAVERY and THE CIVIL WAR??? Ten minutes into this movie and I wanted to walk out, and two hours later nothing had changed. I could feel the suffering in the theater and the fake laughter they were all conjuring to try and keep themselves from wanting to die from pure boredom. Why Spielberg pulled a Chicago Cubs and dropped the ball on this subject is beyond me. The movie is almost insipid, its so bad. Spielberg made the mistake of trying to educate rather than entertain. There was more of Lincoln's spirit in "Glory" than there was in this entire vanity project. One of the biggest disappointments in the history of movies.