lame and unfocused

Rating: 2/10 (1 September 2006)

i can't believe this low brow piece of trash has a 7.5 on IMDb. i have never been more bored. i guess quality standards have sunk to a new low. i wish there was a word for the pain you feel when someone likes something you know is trash. the love story is banal beyond belief, unoriginal and completely without emotion. you don't care about any of these characters which rival kansas in their flatness. the dialogue is laughable at times, for instance, during one of eisenheim's conjuring of dead people an audience member yells out "do you know things? secret things?" or, better, after the crown prince shoots himself before our eyes "what happened? he shot himself!". at least good for a laugh. in a way, the campiness of this film is on par with snakes on a plane. only soap was more fun. there is no depth to any of the scenes. they are about what they are about. and the twist? well, the twist is obvious the moment the setup starts. my god, i can't even write about this idiocy of a movie without getting angry at how bad it was. i guess it's worse to aim high and fail miserably (neil burger should consider going back to film school) than to aim low and succeed.