Fail

Rating: 2/10 (25 December 2014)

The movie failed to inspire, motivate, or even entertain. Movie goers should get refunds for hoopla that ended in snoring. Wish them good luck on breaking even to make this waste of time. Jolie wont see funding for another movie after this one, thank goodness. The mediocre writing, that includes work of the Coens and the screenwriter of Gladiator, William Nicholson, repeats this trite line, "If you can take it, you can make it." Also this line, "One moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory," doesn't sound right, whereas in the book, it does: "A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain." The villain, called Bird, should be a ruthless torturer with emotional issues tied to his lack of promotion and homosexual longings. However Jolie has chosen an androgynous Japanese rock star, Takamasa Ishihara, who doesn't click as mean or psychotic, just barking torture orders to fill his time with an occasionally enigmatic sentence or two to entice us into thinking we havedepth. Like the film, Bird promises much but delivers too little.