If only Spielberg was unavailable...

Rating: 4/10 (7 February 2013)

Let me preface my review by outing myself as someone fairly indifferent to movies. I have no 'film studies' qualifications to my name, and my list of personal favourites would leave you pitying my very soul.
The casting is fine, Day Lewis is believable, history hasn't been messed around with too much. Dialogue is pretty realistic for its time, though Mary Todd sounds like a textbook passage of her life events being read out in the first person. So far, so good. It's just that Spielberg nearly ruins all this goodwill by being blunt old Spielberg.
Case in point: Duh, if it wasn't for the fact Lincoln was always shown in front of a fire/source of light (them dirty down low Confederates always in the half-light) that when he died he cross-faded into a lit candle, and that he conveniently stood in a Christ pose in the tag ending, I'd a thunk he was the baddie. Thanks for clearing that up in a subtle manner, Stevie Boy. Have your own directorial bag of tricks by all means, themes that run though your movie/entire canon of work, but for heaven's sake, I think the audience of a film called Lincoln, about the 13th Amendment no less, might have an inkling of who the protagonist is? Perhaps there's a pocket of the deep south on a 148-year tape delay? Need you be so doltishly blunt in stating the bleedin' obvious?
As has been mentioned in reviews here already, a biopic of Lincoln's early life would have been so much better than this narrowly-time-framed yet still drawn-out portrayal of one of the most pivotal moments in the history of the USA. Provided, of course, Mr Spielberg is not involved. His 'directorial genius' really brought this picture down a good 4 stars.
Now to wash out my mind with a proper movie, like Airplane!