Nothing new for those who loved the original

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2006)

I went into this with very high expectations. #50 on the IMDb top 250, 92% fresh on rottentomatoes. I was disappointed, but I set myself up for it.
It's a good movie, but after seeing this I'm starting to believe that a lot of the '10s' from IDMb voters, did in fact, come from those that hadn't seen Infernal Affairs. I'm not going to come out and say Infernal Affairs is a better movie. When you add up all the elements of both films, The Departed is the superior piece of film-making. What disappointed me though, was that Scorcese really didn't take it to the dizzying heights I would've expected after such a positive reaction from almost everyone that had seen it.
Probably every aspect is improved upon in terms of the production process, with the exception of editing. I thought some of the earlier scenes about their childhoods were unnecessary and failed to add anything really substantial to the structure of the original... and that's perhaps my complaint for the whole movie. By the end I felt like I'd just watched Infernal Affairs all over again. What was good, didn't really change. What was bad was changed, but not in such a way that it made any dramatic impact.
The romance subplot for instance, was equally as dull as it had been in the original. There wasn't much chemistry between the psychiatrist and the two leads.. it was done well enough to make a point about the two of them, but not well enough to really move me.
The acting was fine, believable, occasionally there'd be something that'd make me draw breath from Jack Nicholas and Leonardo DiCaprio. But most of the time, nothing more.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: had I never seen Infernal Affairs, The Departed would have been nothing short of spectacular. But I had. And what I got was a very competent remake from the master that didn't take the story or characters to any dramatic new depths. What ultimately kept my attention wasn't anything different that Scorcese did, but the same, tense game of cat and mouse that was lifted straight of the original.
Honestly I wanted to sing this movie praises, but all I can really do is clap and say: 'well done'.