Tepid, Formulaic , Nonsense

Rating: 3/10 (16 February 2008)

I condemn this film, not because it is bad, but because it is lazy. Producers Turteltaub and Bruckheimer both have experience of big(pirates) and low budget(cool runnings) success.But here they switch to remote control, and the overwhelming feeling is of a film that was created to generate a paycheck, and no more.
The film is rotten at the core, who cares whether Ben and Patrick Gates (played by Nic Cage and Jon Voight)ancestor was implicated in the murder of Abraham Lincoln? And without that the film loses all dramatic impetus. London? Black cabs, double decker red buses,Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, red post boxes...........yawn, it really is as predictable as that.
The plot is preposterous, and helen Mirren looks as though she would have been better employed looking for a decent script rather than trotting out the banal dross she has to speak.The two hour running time is desperately short of both decent action and witty script, instead we have to trudge through a formula so clunky that you find yourself screaming for an on screen mechanic to give it some oil.
Of course the set pieces are fine, and the stars do their bit - but no more.Avoid unless you are pretty desperate for something to do.