Way way overrated.

Rating: 5/10 (9 June 2008)

I saw this expecting something extraordinary. After the first ten minutes, I was looking at my watch. After the first half hour, I was tempted to turn it off and look at something else. I stuck with it since I have great respect for Daniel Day Lewis and I assumed things were going to get better. Not. There eventually were a few interesting scenes, but the music set the tone of "scary things about to happen" - and they never did. Along with the inappropriate music, there was a lot of background rhythmic banging, some totally out of place violin concerto music, and a disjointed and disconcertingly unfocused plot, if you can call the alleged storyline a plot. It makes me want to read the Upton Sinclair novel to see if he ever wrote something this boring and unconvincing. I enjoyed Paul Dano's performance - I wasn't sure if he was a fraud or a nutcase until the end. The cinematography was excellent but almost every scene went on way too long. I do think that DDL is a great actor, but I also think that he must take some responsibility for his character being such a boring sort of sociopath and for (reading other concurring reviews) not clarifying any of his character's motivations or true feelings. The movie is mostly a set of disconnected, excessively lengthy, cameos. Looking through the reviews on IMDb, I simply cannot figure out how IMDb's calculator averages these reviews out to 8.4. I am seeing massive numbers of 2's and 1's - which I believe is an overreaction to the hype. Sadly, when all is said and done, I think this will go down as a just mediocre and forgettable movie.