Pretentious

Rating: 1/10 (12 May 1999)

A fine example of a movie trying really hard to be a Rubik's Cube. When a movie starts tripping over itself just for the sake of complicating the plot--that's when I throw up my hands and say, "Enough already!" It stops being entertaining and enjoyable and begins to be nothing but a chore. I tried to like this movie, but after being introduced to about 300 characters who all look and act alike (their names even rhyme, for God's sake!), and when the plot demands that we memorize all sorts of details about each one of them to follow the story, that when it stops being fun. I felt like I was working overtime just to keep up with this mess.
When the ending is finally sprung, and I thought about it in the context of the rest of the movie, it should have all made sense, justifying the over-complicated story, but it didn't. Holes opened up large enough for houses to fall through. It seemed as if the writer just threw in the most unlikely possibility to astonish the audience. After the maze he leads us through, it's easy to forget why this doesn't make sense. It's a real cheap shot.