Ehhhhh,,,

Rating: 7/10 (17 February 2008)

Okay, I'm not going to say this was the worst movie I've ever seen. However, the movie did have some problems which people are ignoring. I think movies that are "suppose to be good to the movie elites" and are low budget will get bombarded by compliments simply because people think they are suppose to worship it.
Let me start with Daniel Day Lewis's acting ability. Sure, it was technically GREAT acting, some of the best i've ever seen. But, it was cold and emotionless. I didn't feel ANYTHING for him. Isn't that the goal of acting? It's an actor's duty to take the audience on a journey and reward them. Although Lewis was totally believable, creepy, and captured this old time character wonderfully, he didn't take me on a worthwhile journey. I didn't feel sadness for him, I didn't feel pain in him. I think I would prefer a worse acting job if the actor actually made me feel something for the character.
Moreover, I think this is the problem I had with the entire movie. It was cold. How is a movie almost 3 hours, and you wind up feeling left wanting something to hold onto. We spend a long while developing relationships with characters to see them trashed in the end by an emotionless daniel day. I feel let down by the director, the actor, and the writer. Furthermore, if you want to have such a cold ending, why build it up for 3 hours? This movie could have had an hour trimmed off of it if they were going to have daniel day run around with a bowling pin murdering a preacher and telling his son that he's an orphan. Why build up all the subtleties and then thrown them in the garbage can? Besides that, the movie was pretty good. It was somewhat interesting to see well drilling in the early 1900's. The acting was overall pretty good. I just don't think this movie is nearly the 9 rating that everyone wants to think it is.