Terrible, to say the least

Rating: 2/10 (27 December 2006)

Never before have I had the desire (or indifference for that matter) to walk out of a movie theater until I saw this film. There's a lack of a compelling, semi-coherent story line that makes you question why you even want to see the ending. The plot spans for approx. 20 years and tells Matt Damon's character's story in a flashback way but does not spend enough time developing any of the characters what so ever. You feel like you are thrown into this story with out any background on anyone, and while searching for it throughout the movie within the 5 - 7 minute (very extensive!) unsequential scenes, you find nothing to understand these people better.
Matt Damon is so incredibly stone faced and dull throughout the film that its hard to believe hes a real person, let alone someone acting as a real person. There were too many short and blunt scenes when there should have been longer and more emotion filled ones. I understand that this is a movie about the beginning of the CIA but in order for something to be interesting and to make a connection to the audience the characters have to strike a cord. I couldn't tell you one thing about the protagonists character, as personality and morals and judgment.
I felt that there was absolutely no climax what so ever and no driving force. You really just don't care how it ends because you don't care what happens to anyone. It really baffles me how this movie is getting great reviews. Maybe I'm missing something but this is only one out of a handful of a lifespan of movies that I would absolutely never see again.
As a closing anecdote, about halfway through the movie, when my friends and I realized we just wasted $9.50 and started to talk amongst ourselves, the people sitting in front of us joined in on our conversation trying themselves to find something interesting and stimulating. This was about 10 minutes after 3 people sitting behind us walked out.