There will be disappointment.

Rating: 2/10 (15 January 2008)

After seeing There Will Be Blood last night, I am filled with the desire to fetch the nearest sharp twig, run over to P.T. Anderson's house, and poke him in the eye, repeatedly, with it.
Without getting into spoilers - not that there's anything to spoil, as the concepts of "plot" and "motion" are nearly absent from this film - I would venture that the only redeeming quality of this movie is Daniel Day-Lewis, who can act in the same way that Maria Callas could sing, Bill Robinson could tap-dance, Ted Williams could hit a fastball, or Warren Buffett can make money. The man is simply a prodigious talent. Still, even with Mr. Day-Lewis' tour de force, he could not save this stem-winding, meandering movie from itself. Ideas which were interesting were aborted in the womb. Characters with real promise and sparks of uniqueness were not fully fleshed out. Dialogue waffled between inventive and just plain weird.
As a friend remarked, there's one sure tell that a writer is struggling with dramatic exposition, and that is the introduction of a new character halfway through. Mr. Anderson committed this foul, along with many others, in creating the failure that is this film. I did not like There Will Be Blood and I suggest to anyone who might be reading this that you take your money and spend it elsewhere.