So-so movie

Rating: Null/10 (17 November 2012)

A very slow-going film with exceptional acting, sets and costumes. The film would have benefited from an edit of at least 30 minutes, yet unfortunately at this point in Spielberg's career, he can demand final cut.
Too bad for him, because it could use a major haircut. And, sometimes it's good to seek the advice of others no matter how in love you are with certain scenes and dialogue. The drama picks up in the last 1/3 of this 2.5 hour tour-de-force of pedantry, but that can't save it. You begin to feel Lincoln's pain and fatigue of this nation's Civil War sitting through the drudgery of this basically flat screenplay.
It's becoming a cliché with Spielberg, who gets green-lighted on one epic after another, will probably get lots of Oscar Nominations, but in the end is simply not producing the cohesive dramatic work of his earlier days.