Terrible, shallow attempt at emotional manipulation

Rating: 1/10 (26 January 2015)

Let's start with a positive. The cinematography is magnificent - this is a very pretty movie. I will infer another positive, that Angelina Jolie took the principle of "Show, don't tell" to heart ... a bit too much. Now for the negatives, of which there are many. The major one is of course that the movie, at 135+ minutes, is FAR too long. The protagonist is a very pretty cipher, with no discernible internal life. His flirtation with hard liquor during childhood flashbacks had no reason (when asked why he was doing it, he said "I don't know" - end of story) but to give him something to 'overcome' by the discovery of his sporting ability. The character is passive for 90% of the movie - e.g. he only becomes a sports star because his brother nags him into it. The only reason given to the audience to sympathize with him is his sporting prowess, which comes to him with no discernible effort - his only appeal is to people who think that "sporting hero" is an oxymoron.
No bad thing that happens to him for the entire movie has any lasting consequences, i.e.
-being fouled in a race early on doesn't even stop him from winning that race;
-after 45 days at sea, untold months in Japanese POW camps and being punched in the face by every other prisoner in one camp, he still looks like he's just stepped off the set of a fashion magazine;
-at one point he's thrown down several meters onto a hard surface by a guard. He limps for a couple of scenes but is otherwise fine.
Neither do any of these events have any discernible psychological impact.
Incidentally, the long bombing raid scene at the start could have been cut from the movie with no effect on plot or character development. The dramatic film score fell flat with obvious attempts to induce emotions in me that the actual film had dismally failed to set up.
Finally, we are given the lead character's future struggle with PTSD, redemption and trip to Japan for reconciliation with his former enemies, i.e. the most interesting part of the story, as a few throwaway lines of text. Presumably the lead actor, a veritable block of wood, couldn't have conveyed that drama.