I have played the game, read the novel, and I wanted to see the movie -- Despite the bad reviews on IMDb.com -- Boy do I regret that decision.
Josh Hartnett delivers his standard stone-faced-not-an-emotion-in-sight performance, something which should be fine for a noir-flick, but is not. A film-noir requires the leading actor to have a certain cool about him, and unless you are a female teenager, Mr. Hartnett is not giving you any..
Scarlett Johanson is fair enough, but her role is so small that it couldn't possibly matter either way. Most of the other actors deliver convincing performances, but in the end, the acting is not what drag this blurb of a movie down into the puddle where it belongs. Its primarily the directing and the editing that fails so miserably.
NOTHING, and I mean nothing, hangs together in this movie. It is made up of a variety of subplots, each one of them leads into a void, and then a development magically appears -- Something totally unrelated to the rest of the story, characters you have never heard of (And will never hear of again) clues the cops back on a trail which they either just forget, or follow until it resolves back into the great void again, until a new unrelated thread pops out of the same nothingness.
The murder doesn't even take place until a third of the movie has passed by, and you already find yourself bored to tears. A confusing, and rather annoying/boring hour later you are just happy that its over. Really, this movie isn't even worth the electric expenses of running the DVD for the runtime of the film.
Josh Hartnett delivers his standard stone-faced-not-an-emotion-in-sight performance, something which should be fine for a noir-flick, but is not. A film-noir requires the leading actor to have a certain cool about him, and unless you are a female teenager, Mr. Hartnett is not giving you any..
Scarlett Johanson is fair enough, but her role is so small that it couldn't possibly matter either way. Most of the other actors deliver convincing performances, but in the end, the acting is not what drag this blurb of a movie down into the puddle where it belongs. Its primarily the directing and the editing that fails so miserably.
NOTHING, and I mean nothing, hangs together in this movie. It is made up of a variety of subplots, each one of them leads into a void, and then a development magically appears -- Something totally unrelated to the rest of the story, characters you have never heard of (And will never hear of again) clues the cops back on a trail which they either just forget, or follow until it resolves back into the great void again, until a new unrelated thread pops out of the same nothingness.
The murder doesn't even take place until a third of the movie has passed by, and you already find yourself bored to tears. A confusing, and rather annoying/boring hour later you are just happy that its over. Really, this movie isn't even worth the electric expenses of running the DVD for the runtime of the film.