Well shot, but not that interesting

Rating: 6/10 (6 September 2008)

Watching this film, I realized two things. One, this was well shot and written, and two... It became tedious and boring twenty minutes in.
Some had to do with the slow pacing, and the rest had to do with none of his revelations being all that interesting. If your protagonist is going crazy, it should at least be fascinating to watch for the entire movie, not just the first twenty minutes.
The whole 'Christian Bale pieces together strange clues that lead to a revelation' became far too repetitive after the first twenty minutes, leaving the rest of the film seeming like 'ah, he's found something else that correlates with some memory. How fascinating! Oh, wait, no, it's the same thing again, just with a different window dressing!'
The music was also problematic, as it hurt the film by it's incredibly lack of subtlety. "This is weird! We've got violins to tell you this! Every time it's a weird moment, we're using this same violin riff! No, really, it's iconic, not trite!"
Visually, it was very well done. I wasn't a huge fan of the look, but it was executed with such flair that was hard to dislike.
Plot-wise, it was good also, but what hurt the plot was the pacing. If you're going to be repetitive about something, it's got to be absolutely mesmerizing. This unfortunately wasn't.