Boring, plodding and excruciatingly long.

Rating: 3/10 (1 April 2008)

Hollywood, like the rest of society, has its own political correctness. This is one of those films that everyone is supposed to admire. Supposedly, the characters are deep and dark and very complex. Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best actors working today, blah, blah blah.
Almost all of this is garbage. This film has the worst attribute of anything in the entertainment industry - it is not entertaining. Boring would be a better term. Dull, plodding and excruciatingly long. The moments of interest are few and far between, and far too fleeting to make this movie worth watching. One leaves the film primarily with a sense of wonder as to why Hollywood thinks it is so noteworthy. It is not, except perhaps as a example of the bad films Hollywood increasingly tells us (the public) that we SHOULD like. There is a growing disconnect between the films celebrated at the Academy Awards and those films that the public actually enjoys. No wonder the audience for the Awards dwindles each year. Continued celebration of boring, forgettable films such as this will ensure the Academy's increasing irrelevance.