Will someone say "Emperor has no clothes!" please?

Rating: 1/10 (28 March 2009)

Because he's full frontal nude! This was not a good movie. Simple as that.
Starting from the first scene, my whole enthusiasm was drained off when I saw the cops torturing a guy for doing good in a competition. My mind was boggled. Has there ever been a more ludicrous, more absurd opening in the history of cinema? I mean who shows their script utterly sucks in the very first moments? Even bad action movies don't do that. It felt like a punch. (You thought it was gonna be good because of all those Oscars, eh? Here you go! POW!)
The following sequences where we witness our characters' past were far from being sincere, real, or authentic. I can't believe people compare this to City of God. It felt so... amateurish. Danny Boyle has totally lost his edge. There was nothing impressive. I don't know how to quite put it right, but there was this "We're so happy to be making this film!" feeling all over the movie and it especially didn't work well for the supposed dramatic moments. They were not real, not new, not original. A little bit of Oliver Twist, and some bad humor. Nothing memorable.
And the show... Ah, the show... A vulgar, cheating, lying, conniving bully of a TV show host? Where do they find these ideas? You can't just suspect a competitor of cheating and send him off to be electrocuted! In a place where a TV show like that is being made, these kinda stuff just cannot happen. This is a fact. Nobody can say anything to make it okay. That was the one most stupid character idea ever to be realized on screen.
And they even told about their suspicions to the press without so much as trying to frame him with some lie like they found something on him. How disreputable is that for the show? And is it so incomprehensible to think that maybe he just knew the answers? "Doctors, professors can't go where he went." my a**!!! As if the questions were prepared for geniuses... The first half was all about India and they even had questions with humorous answers that -like the cop said- a 5 year old could answer. This was *very cleverly* written to legitimize people's suspicions of the cheating thing but instead it made the lead guy look like a borderline idiot. And didn't the host think that maybe the guy could make a complaint, or at least talk to the press? Was he gonna cover it up with his strong ties to the police and threaten the media? He's a TV personality for god's sake! Not a made man! Oh god, it was so absurd.
And has nobody warned the writer about the "perfect chronology between the events in the guys life and the contents of the questions" angle was way too off? Too forced? You gotta be a bit more subtle when you're dealing with stuff like destiny since you're trying to make a real movie. Either go crazy and say "In my movie's universe these things are normal." like Woody Allen does, or make it a bit more realistic and reasonable like it was in the movie Crash. This was just lame, childish, BAD writing. Oh and the lead character must have had such a brain, they should kill the guy and study it. He remembers everything! If our brains stored information like that... Man, I don't even what would happen!
And the ending. The *perfectly* thought out ending where the easiest question in the world comes as the last question, just to tie it all up with a not-so-meaningful memory from his childhood. So cheap. The chaotic brother who just can't decide what to be, suddenly goes paladin and he, very quickly, brings a solution to the girl's problems and sets her free, and even handles the communication problem between the lovers just so that they can have the conclusion talk that will wrap the movie up. So cheap. And he kills the boss who, very conveniently, enters the room first. (come on, man... why would a crime boss enter a room like a deer when he knows there's something suspicious going on?) And the third act is done! Writing is that easy guys. And you can even get an Oscar for it.
David Fincher must have been so annoyed... When you can't even trust the Academy, what's the point of the whole awards concept?
Please let's stop this craze of cheering for bad movies just because of their hype! First the Dark Knight and now this. Teenagers go ape**** over horrific stuff like Twilight. What is going on? I don't think I can handle another one.