A Disappointment

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2012)

For those who have not read the book or seen earlier versions of the story (like me), I'm sure this film will be a big disappointment. It certainly was for me and for many others in the mostly senior citizen audience in the near-packed theater in Palo Alto I attended, judging from the remarks I overheard afterwards.
The problem is the nonlinear story and the lack of firm definition of all the characters. They are recognizable by face but not by name. Which one is Alleline, Esterhase, Bland, Haydon? We get them by the end, but during the film one wonders who is whom and what's with all these other people? And later, how does Ricki Tarr fit in? And perhaps most of all, how does Prideaux survive his wounds after we saw his body lying in a reservoir-sized pool of blood?
Beautifully filmed and generally sparingly acted, technically it's wonderful. But if the story is confusing to most of the audience — my two companions, one 40 and the other 86, had to ask me what went on — then I can only classify it as a failure.