And what's so great about this movie?

Rating: 5/10 (4 February 2008)

Not a horrible movie.. but it's just.... awfully average; almost like a monotone flat beep on a heart meter at by the hospital bed.
It started out decent (think "Adaptation") but this movie's lack of any cerebral storyline became soon apparent: it's paper thin. The premise felt more promising during the trailer but this feeling did not translate into the actual film itself. There is simply nothing beyond the initial "gimmick" that we already know before hand.
Good acting all around but I felt Hoffman's part was written poorly (wooden). All of the characters were quite cliché (zero depth), even Will Ferrel's own character who is supposed to go through trials and errors and becomes a new man: ends up becoming exactly what everyone would expect him to be in a cliché movie. You can smell the outcome of each scene from a mile away. There are no surprises. Quite frankly I felt disappointed.
***SPOILER***When Will is confronted with the book author, the whole sci-fi main gimmick was somehow "accepted" in the reality of the movie by the lead actors.***SPOILER*** The use of CGI and little cartoon logos further distracted any reasonable amount of seriousness from the movie. Nothing felt really significant. By the end it was obvious that it became dragged on its last leg as nothing else beyond the basic storyline from the trailer was to be fleshed out. It's an attempt at an "artsy" sort of film but ends up being no Picasso; in fact it's more like a $5 coloring book one can buy at Walmart with Spider-man doing cool looking poses.
How this ended up being nominated for so many things is beyond me. Perhaps it is more important these days to have a film that LOOKS artsy ("sophisticated") and employ well-known A-listers, rather than making sure there is a meaningful story to be told first.