The Godawful Case of Conflict Avoidance, and at almost 3 hours long too

Rating: 2/10 (6 July 2010)

Ouch. I never thought I'd be giving a David FINCHER movie a rating under 6 stars. As it turns out... you really never should say "never".
Like I said, I love Fincher. I watched this movie primarily for the fact that he directed it. That, AND the fact that Cate Blanchett is in it. Had Blanchett not been in it, it would have been a zero star rating, if I could give it that!!! The movie was bad right from the start. First off, the old lady was so over-acted and WAY over exaggerated. I have NEVER heard an old woman talk like that before, and I was there when my Grandmother (on my mom's side) was sick in the hospital. Add the obligatory Hurricane Katrina reference to that and, yep, it was clear this was going to be one VERY bad movie. Should you encounter a start as bad as this, I ask that you eject the disc from the player, drop it in a bucket of ice-cold water, and call the poison control, as you have something very toxic on your hands! The plot was rubbish for two reasons: One being that it was just a remake of Forrest Gump. Ferchrissake, it was written by the same screen writer! Another being that it was just nonsensical, despite it sounding interesting. For starters, he is a FREAK. He was born an old man. He was adopted. He should have had a rough life but no, he has it all wonderful and what not. There were several parts where I just fell on the ground and flailed around laughing because it was just so hokey and over-the-top.
The BIGGEST problem with the plot was that there was not enough conflict. I mean, come on, this movie is almost three hours long, and whatever conflict there is, it gets resolved in 2 minutes. This got on my nerves. Come on, with the whole "Midnight lover with Tilda Swinton" and "Pursuing Daisy" story, there should be a conflict. Simply put, there isn't. It got on my nerves.
The movie is simply WAY TOO LONG too. Come on, it runs 167 minutes. The same story could have been told in about TWO hours or less! But no, Fincher had to overflow it with so much unnecessary crap (like the Tilda Swinton plot) and 5 minute shots.
Oh the ending was lame too. Come on you drag the plot out for THAT LONG and then suddenly try to end with the *GROOOOAAAANNN* inducing "Some are mothers, some dance, some get struck by lightning" lameness. Way to rush the ending to a very unnecessarily long and slow paced movie. Can someone also tell me why the humming bird was important??? I was just face-palming when it appeared at the end.
By the time the movie was over, I just left the theatre feeling depressed and sick. Come on, too much lame-ness and bleakness, it wasn't even uplifting-depressing, it was just plain draining and depressing.
Overall, this movie is a total plagiarism and a very overlong and unorganized mess of a film, and I love Davind Fincher. Let's hope his Dragon Tattoo adaptation turns out good. As for this, AVOID!!!!