Not as great as the hype would suggest

Rating: 6/10 (25 January 2010)

I went into this movie knowing it had a 90% fresh rating on rotten tomatoes, and 8.1 here on IMDb, not to mention award nominations galore. So I was expecting something special.
Unfortunately, as with a lot of films that are highly praised these days, I thought this was quite an average film made up of some witty moments, but generally, too much of this was dull and un involving and not nearly as moving as it could have been.
George Clooney is good in the role of Ryan Bingham, a man very content in his life and jet setting job, a man who doesn't appreciate change. George is on screen for almost every minute of the film, and he does well here but it's hardly a stretch for him. We've seen him do this kind of thing before with slight variations of character in films such as One fine day, Oceans 11, 12 and 13, Intolerable cruelty and Out of sight. The rest of the cast are also good, no real standouts, but a cameo from JK Simmons made me sit up.
The script has some amusing moments, none are laugh out loud, merely amusing, a chuckle here and a chuckle there.
What disappointed me most was the lack of emotion I felt whilst watching this. For a film thats 2 hours long and has only its characters talking to keep us glued, the lack of emotion I felt whilst watching was a huge letdown.
To summarise, it's a witty film, along the lines of Sideways and About Schmidt. It's very talky and not a great deal happens. It's focus is on George Clooney, who's character, by the end, doesn't seem to evolve as much as expected. Nor did I!