Spielberg, the most over rated adventure film director of all time

Rating: 3/10 (9 February 2013)

It's truly an amazing feat that a director can bore an audience within a minute and continue that tone for two and a half hours.
It's a strange combination as it's boring but not slow. It's endless scene after scene of talk that doesn't drive the story forward. Neither the writer nor director appears to have understood that such things as intrigue and character development have been used in other films. Surely the opponents of Lincoln's bill were three dimensional people, but not in this film.
The character of Lincoln himself is so deliberate, studies and introspective that it's hard to understand how he could have even been an engaging, persuasive enough person to have won an election, think stereotype of a Librarian, Accountant & Specialise Doctor all rolled up in one. He tell stories from his pass, a lot and in one scene a character complains and walks out, this was a good strategy and one that was adopted by at least six members of the audience.
If this film is an accurate depiction of the people running American in the 1860's then it must have been a boring place to live.
My suggestion is that a non American director may have been able to inject some life into this icon of a person and that political "back room" manoeuvres would have spiced up this dreary tale.
Spielberg has had great success with adventure and fantasy films and one achievement with drama, zero with comedy, maybe he should stick to his strengths.