Long. Tedious. Big Budget....So What.

Rating: Null/10 (10 June 2001)

I can't understand why so many people are raving about this film. An hour into it and they're still trying to flesh out characters who remain flat throughout.
Ben Affleck has 2 facial expressions. He uses them both, extensively. Kate Beckinsale's easy to look at and this provides some relief to an otherwise tedious first hour.
The next hour is the attack. Pretty cool special effects, but even these get tedious after a while, and you're left with what the director must hope we will believe is engaging acting. It's not. Ben Affleck is out of his depth, and unremitting close-ups of his two facial expressions don't substitute for acting.
By the time I got to the finishing stretch (and it felt like the end of a long race)I'd lost all interest. I was drumming my fingers when I was supposed to be teary-eyed. Sorry. Two thumbs down.
P.S. Did anybody else notice the calendar at the Japanese headquarters (which otherwise used Japanese characters, showed the word "SUNDAY"?