There might be blood eventually

Rating: 2/10 (4 December 2010)

I have never written a review on IMDb before. I consider myself a well rounded movie fan, if perhaps a product of my generation (i'm 28). I like movies like No Country for Old Men and Schindlers list but I also enjoy Arnie and Star Wars. There Will Be Blood annoyed me so much I felt the need to write a review.
I went into There Will Be Blood not knowing much, I knew it was about greed and oil, it had Daniel Day Lewis, and good reviews. I foolishly thought that it would have more of a frontier/western feel to it with a power struggle that maybe ended with a gun fight, but that's my own fault for not doing my research and not the movies.I won't go over the plot or story as many others have already.
What I liked was DDL and seeing the 1900s oil drilling etc, but thats honestly about it. What I didn't like was the title's promise of 'blood', now i'm not expecting a horror and I don't hold the opinion of blood making a good film, what I mean is that the title suggests a ramping up of tension and violence that is A) intrinsic to the plot and B)a major theme. It is neither, yes there WILL be blood but you're going to have to sit through 2+ hours of boring fixed camera angles, pointless horror movie music (cut over scenes of walking around or hammering posts), a confusing cast choice where one guy plays two people (I thought this was for plot reasons, but no its just because one actor backed out and casting couldn't be bothered to find another actor), a main character whose motivations and personality are a mystery (but not in an interesting mysterious way). I was expecting the tension to build and build, even toward the last 40 mins I thought it was going to happen, but it doesn't, as I said above they employ music that suggests impending violence or catastrophe, but this never matches up with what we're seeing (a montage of dull activities) and then dies as randomly as it is starts.
There are accidents and a bit of random violence in the middle but it will leave you questioning why its there. DDL tells his 'brother' that he is essentially a bitter angry man who hates everyone else and by default is slightly mental...which is weird because that wasn't brought to our attention in the first hour and a half and I was under the impression that he was just a successful hard working man who loved his adopted son. Yes he's going to be a little money grabbing but then we wouldn't expect anything else from someone in the oil business would we? To suddenly reveal his mental state or in fact his personality disorder that far in the movie in a casual conversation seems like they realised they had written a boring movie and in order to change gears they decided he would be a little bit mental. This results in not caring about what happens to him. If his dark side was countered by the priest whose angelic mission to build his church and save DDL from his selfish ways was the yang to DDLs Ying then it would be a balanced struggle of wills perhaps. However the priest is just as shallow and see through as Daniel so we're left with a bit of tension between two unlikable guys whose odd power struggle doesn't really have a source or a reason to it.
A very convoluted, overly long, boring, and confusing movie that is neither clever or artistic.