Are you serious?

Rating: 3/10 (1 November 2006)

Reading these drooling reviews, I have to wonder what has gone wrong with the movie-viewing community of late.
This film is nothing more than a very expensive exercise in overstatement. How many times can we possibly hit our audience over the head with the same exact symbolism? How blatantly obvious can we make our "elaborate plot twists" by the end of the film? Hugh Jackman's closing speech is perfectly typical of this film. Shot and dying on the floor, he suddenly comes to this very drawn out and very boringly shot epiphany about how he was never REALLY obsessed with finding out his opponent's secrets. He actually traveled thousands of miles, spent countless amounts of money, (How did he have this, by the way?) shot, stalked, kidnapped, and did his very best to destroy his opponent's life, but he actually did it for "the look on their (the audience) faces." Please.
And plot twists? No no no, my friends. There is precisely one plot twist, and it is given away by the "tease" at the beginning of the film. As soon as you see that the hat doesn't leave, you know the rest of the movie. Okay, it clones things. He makes new and kills one of himself every time. It's not a huge leap in logic, but the filmmakers see fit to treat the audience like a bunch of Neanderthal second graders.
Finally, we are supposed to like the magician/twin that makes it back to his daughter in the end. Forgetting of course, the fact that he broke Hugh Jackman's legs, killed his wife, crushed that innocent woman's hand, and oh yes, shot and killed his rival. But he was justified, right? WRONG. Once again, Hollywood comes out with the kind of ambiguous, almost-moral movie that makes you just cringe with the pansy-butt quality of their statements.
Please do both me and yourself a favor and skip this tripe.