Couldn't Understand Robert Downey

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2010)

Note to Hollywood film directors: You can pour 100 million dollars into a movie; you can hire top-name actors; you can splash it up with dazzling special effects; you can do product tie-ins and other state-of-the-art promotion; you can put up eye-catching billboards, and sell merchandise in Happy Meals...it won't make a damn bit of difference if NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE ACTORS ARE SAYING.
Maybe it's just me, maybe my ears are going, but I couldn't understand a word of Robert Downey Jr.'s dialogue. It sounded like he was trying so hard to pull off an authentic British accent that he was afraid to speak up for fear of unmasking his deficiency (what little I did hear sounded fairly authentic, so he needn't have worried). Regardless, I could hear Jude Law and everyone else just fine, so I'm pretty sure it's not my ears.
In this day and age of instant digital filming, when they don't have to wait for the rushes to come back to review the day's filming, why don't directors make an extra effort to listen to the scene they've just shot and make sure the dialogue can be heard? The worst offender in this regard is Soderbergh, he seems to be trying so hard for "natural" dialogue (people mumbling, talking over each other, disdaining any hint of exposition, etc.) that it makes otherwise good films a real slog. It should not take an EFFORT to enjoy a movie.
Please tell me I'm not alone in this.
In any case, I didn't rate this film because I shut it off halfway through and sent it back to Blockbuster. Too bad, it looked like a good movie otherwise.