don't listen to the nay sayers go see it for yourself

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2006)

CONTAINS SPOILERS!
I went to an advanced screening last night. I honestly was kind of dreading it. While I am a big fan of the actors, the long run time and the negative reviews I read had me prepared for a boring 3 hours. Thankfully I was wrong.
The pace of the movie was deliberate but not slow. There were no actual action scenes but I still found it very suspenseful. I was guessing about everyones loyalties right up until the very end.
I thought Matt Damon played the part wonderfully. His performance was very deliberate. He spoke very little but I was just as interested in what he didn't say.
The movie does move around from the present, 1961, to the main characters past beginning with his college career at Yale frequently. I thought it was done very tastefully. I never had a problem understanding what time the movie was in. There were captions to show the location and date and it flowed very well.
I thought that Matt and Angelina did very well in their parts as a married couple. They weren't supposed to steam up the screen. They had a one night stand, she got pregnant, and he did the "honorable" thing by marrying her. They weren't in love and if she hadn't gotten pregnant they would never have married each other.
I'm trying to respond to a lot of the negative reviews I read about the movie. From some of them I don't think people even saw the movie but only commented on previews.
As far as negative aspects of the movie I can only think of one. I did not like Matt and Angelina's college age son. I thought his acting was over the top and I cringed every time he was on screen. He did look a lot like Matt though.
I thought it was a great movie and I highly recommend it. I am going to go again when it is released. I'm sure I missed something it was full of so much intrigue. I also have a few questions I haven't been able to figure out yet.