Scorsese Lays a Very Large Rotten Egg

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2010)

The premise of SHUTTER ISLAND was fresh and original...the first dozen or times it was utilized in a story.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
BE WARNED.
The idea that the main character is really a patient at the mental hospital, not a federal marshal investigating a disappearance there, has been done countless times. Very early in the narrative I figured out that the story was being told from inside Teddy's mind and kept waiting for some reason that this much money was being spent and this talented a group of people working so hard to tell this story. There must be some other twist coming that will make this worthwhile.
Nope. It just gets worse and worse, and sillier and sillier.
This would provide great material for Mystery Science Theater 3000. Tonight people all over the theater were laughing out loud, and not at any points that were supposed to be funny.
The screenplay, to be generous, stinks. Fine actors read dialog that is as stilted as can be. The musical score is equally bad, with shuddering, ominous strings underlying scenes and trying valiantly to drown out the awful lines those poor actors were forced to say.
Because the story is being told through the eyes of an insane characters, the continuity lapses are understandable. A hurricane blows over the island, causing considerable damage. For whatever reason, though, the storm is selective. Huge trees are uprooted in some places but in other places there is no visible damage at all.
In one scene near the end Teddy wakes up to find three supporting characters standing around his bed. It brought to mind the scene at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ when Dorothy wakes up to find her friends have been watching over her while she sleeps. Did Scorsese not realize the similarity? There was one fascinating mystery that I hoped would be explained but wasn't. Teddy makes his way to a lighthouse and runs up the stairs to find one of the doctors from the mental hospital in a office.
OK. It's a lighthouse. There's a spiral staircase running through the middle of it. How in the world did the doctor manage to get a desk, chairs, file cabinet, lamps, etc., three stories up a spiral staircase? And why? I'd ask the same question of Scorsese. You and some brilliant actors made this turd.
Why?