WTF . . . It was total Crap

Rating: 1/10 (7 January 2012)

I would have preferred to choose minus-1 for Gawd-awful, but the choice was not available.
I went into the theater being VERY familiar with the mini-series. I went in as an enthusiastic supporter of the effort to convert this work into an original 2-hour(ish) movie. I had even downloaded the pod-cast series promotional materials from iTunes.
So, expecting excellence from an excellent cast, I sat through the biggest pile of (steaming) nothing I've seen in a long time.
How did it look? Like Crap! How coherent was the story telling? Crap! How was the character development? Crap!
I think the director must have believed he was supposed to make a chain of coming attraction vignettes instead of a movie. Perhaps he should limit his future efforts to commercials for dog food and diapers for the aged -- thereby limiting the likelihood of his wasting more time, money and talent.
Can ANYONE explain the logic of multiple scenes of Smiley wordlessly swim around in a pond -- instead of using the same time for character or plot development?
Dose anyone besides me think that the Christmas party scenes were a complete waste?
With all the promotional talk about the calibre of cast that has been assembled, we get virtually zero leverage out of Ciarán Hinds capabilities.
With the rest of the cast going on and on about being intimidated about working with the great John Hurt the director provides us with virtually zero leverage on his capabilities. Did you see anyone leave the theatre saying wow, the John Hurt performance was spellbinding? Hell No.
I saw people in the audience doing Facebook on their iPhones and I became envious of them. My only concern was that the strangers sitting next to me might be offended.
What I really want to know is, where do you have to line up to get opportunities of this calibre with so little ability to deliver?
An Anime version would have done more justice to furthering the proliferation of the story into diverse genre -- just find a different director.
Congratulations on the biggest waste of an opportunity's potential that I have seen in a long long time.