Rating of
2/4
Well, Jamie Bell is Good
Franz Patrick - wrote on 08/11/08
I thought the beginning was pretty fascinating–about how Hayden Christensen’s character discovered his power for the first time–but it went downhill pretty fast. The film lacks a good plot behind the interesting premise so it doesn’t hold up to anything. The latter two-thirds of the movie is basically about Samuel L. Jackson’s character hunting down Christensen without any sort of an explanation why. Jackson’s main quip is that no one should have the power to be everywhere at once. I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever that is said in the movie. If you’re going to have a villain who is both strong and smart, give him or her at least one driving force that justifies (at least in his or her mind, or even better ours as well) his actions. Jamie Bell is about the only great thing about this film. He actually outshines the lead character because he’s conflicted, funny, and charismatic all at the same time (and has nice accent!). Not only that, compared to Christensen’s character, he seems so much more agile and aware of everything. It’s just not good to root for the supporting actor when one is really should be rooting for the lead. As for other characters jumping in and out of the characters’ lives (pun intended–I couldn’t help it), especially Diane Lane’s, it’s distracting at best. The ending is a bit too frustrating as well because there were so many unanswered questions and open-ended stories. It really, really begs for a sequel to the point where it got pathetic. There’s pretty good visual effects here and there but this is far from solid. See it for Jamie Bell.
