Good, but not as clever as people are saying

Rating: 6/10 (11 October 2003)

When reading the reviews of this movie, there seem to be two main camps:

I was confused by the movie, so it sucks!

I was confused by the movie, so it's awesome!

Mild Spoilers...
The truth is that Lynch did a good job transforming a TV show pilot into a movie. He took a rather straight forward story and then when the show was canceled, he turned that story into a dream and then wrote another story around it. It's not a bad idea and it worked fairly well. However, this is not a perfect movie, so I really don't understand why some people get orgasmic over it. I also don't understand why so many of the people who loved this movie consider all of the red herrings and unanswered questions to be positive things. To me, they are just weirdness thrown in for the sake of weirdness. Some of it was entertaining, however, so I can't fault him too much for that.
The bottom line is that I was entertained for the whole movie and intrigued enough by the ending to watch it again for more clues. I'm kind of disappointed in the whole "it was a dream" side of things, as I see that as a huge cop out, story telling-wise. But, as dream stories go, this one isn't bad. I'm not a Hollywood insider, but I expect that the satire angle works at that level. I also appreciate the risks involved. Most work, but some don't. 8/10 stars.