An average movie

Since I’m a huge fan of Andrew Niccol’s work (both ‘Gattaca’ and ‘The Truman Show’ are among my all time favorites, ‘Lord of War’ is a great underrated gem and even I enjoyed ‘S1mone’), I was really eager to check this flick. At last, after 6 long years, he was finally coming up with a new directing effort and my expectations were pretty high. Unfortunately, it turned out to be his weakest work so far, I’m afraid. I mean, it wasn’t bad at all, in fact, he came once again with a really fascinating futuristic concept, it’s just too bad the plot was actually rather weak. Indeed, I especially enjoyed the fact that they explained the whole concept within a few minutes and then moved on with the actual story and, until the casino scene, the whole thing was going fine, but, from then on, it became a rather tedious non-stop chase with a dash of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ on top of that. To make a thriller was fine to me, I mean, ‘Gattaca’ was after all also a thriller, but the major difference is that it was also very contemplative in the sense that it gave the time to the characters and the viewers to think about all the consequences and the impact of such a strange way of life. Here, the characters were barely developed and the cast (Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Alex Pettyfer) didn’t manage to give some life to them. The only actor who stood out was Cillian Murphy, though he did look at least 10 years older than 25 but nevermind. He was the only one who managed to give his character a certain amount of intensity, even though his bad guy was as much underdeveloped as the rest. Basically, the whole thing felt like a missed opportunity but I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10