Horrible !

Rating: 1/10 (7 August 2008)

A nihilistic style piece, where all the exceptional creative and artistic talents are wasted in enhancing humanities most negative emotions. The movie may be well made, but as a piece of fiction it fails to justify its existence. It identifies and taps humanities' core emotions, but does not understand how they operate, and thus cannot raise their level. Scaring people is easy. But understanding the purpose of fear and how it transforms into courage and clarity is to understand the true nature of heroism and what really inspires humans. This film lacks any understanding of how good people have actually been able to defeat tyranny, by turning the fear around. There is an exceptional opportunity for creating genuine hope from the story's premise, but it is lost, in part because I don't believe the director knows how to find it. Finally, the actor playing The Joker appeared to show at least two of the strongest indicators of a vulnerability to develop mental illness. It may not have been wise to have such an individual play this kind of character. I honestly would not recommend this movie to anyone.