Manipulation, not Cleverness

Rating: 4/10 (27 July 2008)

There's a big difference between cleverness through weaving a tapestry of fact, and manipulating the audience through disinformation, smoke, and excessive complexity--ie, mere jerking the audience around. A lot of this film (it quickly becomes evident by the second half) will ride on the obligate identification of the smoky, legendary figure (whom I won't 'spoil' here but who obviously must be someone from among the major characters or it would be anti-climatic). Once you realize that, there are only 1 or 2 persons that could be, and that list becomes one person well before the ending. The manipulation of the audience is also seen in the apparent presentation of "clues" , many of which are deliberately misleading ( including the former appearance of the Legendary Figure). Even at the end, the other Lead Character shows no surprise at the unmasking ... In the end, this film shows itself to be 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.'