Has everyone taken crazy pills?

Rating: 5/10 (8 March 2009)

I wanted to like this movie. I really, really did. I haven't yet gotten around to reading the books (although I still plan to), but after everything I've heard about the depth and weight of the source material, I figured that the movie would carry at least some of those elements over successfully. It so didn't.
What the movie became is a nearly incomprehensible three-hour mishmash of sub par acting, confusing flashbacks, corny dialog, and pseudo-intellectual claptrap. The characters, while very compelling on the surface, are developed so poorly that you never really care about any of them. You don't feel anything for the obvious tension and conflict that the director is trying to create. They're all just gloomy people in costumes.
And this is all particularly sad because at the same time, especially at the end, you get the feeling that there really was a great story in there that was trying to be told. Some very strong philosophical ideas appear, and you sort of realize that during the whole movie you just stammered through, maybe something of substance could have existed, but was completely squandered. The film does come together in the last 20 minutes or so, but by then its much, much too late.