Zero 'craft'

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2016)

While the movie was (rambling) on, it seemed quite alright, though I would not say enjoyable.
Effects seemed decent, acting seemed alright etc.
3D was also decently rendered, for most of the time.
1/2 characters were decent. Not their characterizations, though.
Liked the aspect where the makers expected us to fill in the characters' backstories by diving right in. That showed some promise, that was not followed thru, ultimately.
Overall, a mainstream/commercial Hollywood movie, for mass audiences only. Feel free to leave your brains home.
Surprising, considering they got Duncan Jones to helm it. Michael Bay does action better, and hell, even the much-reviled Antoine Fuqua swords/sandals adaptation of 'King Arthur' did not suck this bad. 'Troy' and 'Kingdom of heaven' could also have been used as decent templates (not going near the fantastic 'Gladiator' for now, just citing lesser works, in the opinion of mass audiences, by virtue of their BO collections and reviews).
But, imho, it also has quite a few flaws (to me, these flaws outweighed all the salient attributes the movie possesses):
1. Very simplistic story. Players of the game might be disappointed (I did not play - friends used to). No 'craft'. Very little war. Even the 1-1 fight sequences, save a few moments, are completely disappointing.
2. Lord of the rings (3 movies, not including the 3 inferior 'Hobbit' spin- offs) should have taught this filmmaker few things. Nope. They did not. Happy Potter movies had better action/adventure sequences.
3. Good actors like Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, Toby Kebbell and Paula Patton have been wasted on lesser roles (to be fair, Patton's character seemed to have more layers than the rest). Travis 'Vikings' Kimmel, in almost an intro of sorts, acquitted himself well, but has a thankless 1-note character to play, almost like a Rajnikant-type, and could have been used for comedic effect a little more than they tried using him to achieve the same effect.
4. No soul in many departments of the filmmaking 'craft'. Editing, especially. Transitions are too abrupt, and action sequences seem to have been chopped off, resulting in continuity glitches, that, to be fair, an average commercial moviewatcher might not notice immediately. Makes similar glitches in Batman V Superman seem tame in comparison.
5. Blatant cash-grab for the sequels. Good movies are those which place the cliffhanger in their 2nd sequel, not the introductory movie itself. This one might have needed a screenplay re-write before finding its way to the screen, something that did not happen, imho, regrettably at that. Plus, there were 2 faux climaxes in spite of the sequelizing going on blatantly. That also seemed sad, and a result of bad writing.
Duncan Jones has made better movies - 'Moon', and 'Source code'. Both of those were smaller in scale. Is this an indicator that he should go back to directing smaller movies? But Colin 'Safety not guaranteed' Trevorrow made 'Jurassic World', which was pretty OK, by any standards (and is gonna direct Episode IX of another 'small' franchise). What about Gareth 'Monster' Edwards going on to direct the decent 'Godzilla', which was also pretty decent?
I regret watching this one, but cannot call it horribly bad either. Let down by Jones, and even Foster, who sometimes has the capability to elevate even the most mundane of characters - guess this one was only for the paycheck. Slumming.