Incredibly well-acted waste of time

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2008)

Maybe I'm just becoming a curmudgeon but this thing and this year's other critical hit, No Country for Old Men, left me cold and wondering "what was the point of that?"
There Will Be Blood is almost 2 hours and 40 minutes of a pretty-much one-dimensional portrait of one really evil guy. There's no depth of character, no character development, and only the feeblest of conflicts. Maybe if the film-makers had made me believe there was actually some real emotional connection between Daniel and his "son" this would have been interesting. But they did everything they could to avoid even that nuance.
After an hour I was checking my watch and asking when something was going to happen. However, because it's nominated for best picture, I sat there. After two hours I was checking my watch and hoping desperately it would end soon. At the end I just wished I hadn't wasted 2 hours and 40 minutes of my life on it.