What a surprise ending!! I was SO CERTAIN that it wouldn't be stupid!

Rating: 4/10 (22 October 2006)

I don't care about the people in this movie, nor about any romance or struggles they were involved in.
And if I say to hell with the characters--the message is the point; that's even worse. The message is neither inspiring, nor enough of an opposite of inspiring to give the stimulating, titillating gift of darkness.
I really went in wanting to like it, and wanting to care about what was going on (and I really like almost all of these actors). And I'm normally not too good at guessing endings and so on... Wow. Not one single surprise that you weren't at least suspecting far in advance. Sometimes, it just boggled the mind; when something was introduced as a surprise, I was sitting there thinking, "Um, didn't they explicitly reveal this an hour ago?"
Maybe I'm just missing the point that it's really for twelve-year-old girls or something.
Yes, that must be it.
I really feel robbed. Sometimes after a movie, there's that afterglow that just fills you up. Sometimes, it's so sad and moving that you can think about it five days later and still work up a tear. Sometimes, it's that it's so fun to think about it, over and over the details... In this case, what I'm left with is wanting to kick someone. It's the feeling of sorta wanting to kick myself, but the 8.5-star rating that's currently the average on IMDb excuses my mistake.
The movie makes you feel like a sucker, and gives you almost nothing in return.
It was mildly pretty, but... I'm still waiting for the prestige, here.