piffle

Rating: 2/10 (26 February 2010)

I was hugely disappointed by this film. It is in fact difficult to say anything positive about this mess of a movie. Unless you expect to get off on 138 minutes of uninterrupted emoting by Leo, I would strongly advise giving this a miss.
Leo's talent can't save the film, nor can the normally enjoyable presence of Mark Ruffalo. Ben Kingsley is the most entertaining cast member but mainly because he looks amused or perhaps embarrassed to be on the set of this schlock-fest. The screenplay is boring or at best laughable, mostly a stream of lame clichés with little relationship to one another or to a coherent plot line. The computer generated imagery, which makes up most of the backdrop of the film indoors and out, is so badly done it looks like a 1990s video game.
It is as if the director, after force feeding the audience with 100 minutes of manipulative, chaotic, badly shot and badly scripted nonsense, desperately patched together a rather simple minded 'surprise' conclusion to save his picture. Unfortunately, like the rest of this stinker, the attempt to bring things together failed pathetically.
Much of the action seems like it was improvised at the last minute and comes off poorly - scenes meant to induce terror or horror merely make one want to laugh - I am sure all the actors will look back on their decision to take part in this film as an embarrassing lapse of judgement.