Wasted Effort...Quite Boring

Rating: 2/10 (23 November 2013)

Oh,what could have been. Steven Spielberg is a great director,but he got bogged down in showing a two and a half hour movie about the passage of the 13th Amendment. It was like watching C Span. The dialogue was pretentious and staged throughout. The endless haggling and vote-seeking put me to sleep more than once, but I diligently pressed the rewind button. Spielberg's genius showed briefly at the beginning of the film when fierce hand-to-hand Civil War fighting was vividly depicted as opposing forces tangled in a shallow creek.I had never before seen such a realistic battle sequence. His brief depiction of Lee's surrender at Appomatox was also memorable. The horror of the all-to-common practice of amputation was shockingly delivered. Daniel Day Lewis' portrayal of Lincoln was uncanny...I had read from a primary source that Lincoln's voice was indeed high-pitched. Other than that, this movie, which should have been titled, "The 13th Amendment" was an unrelenting,sleep inducing bore. What a waste of time and money.They should have made a film about Lincoln's White House years, including the death of his son, his hands- on military decisions and the firing of Gen. McClellan,the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, the passage of he 13th Amendment, and Lincoln's assassination. Instead, the focus was only on the 13th Amendment....utter boredom.