ChrisBagley

This movie had nearly as much contrived heroism and maudlin emotion as "Armageddon" and nearly the same goofy-damsel-in-despair as Sandra Bullock's earlier movies but without quite convincing me that it was an acceptable use of my 82 minutes. Thank goodness it wasn't any longer. WTF were the Cuarons trying to do with this? Did they add anything? I couldn't tell. I guess George Clooney added his winning smile and another big name on the marquis. The only good thing I can say about this movie is that it had a few sequences decent action. All things considered, though, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone except for 13-year-old girls who are hardcore fans of both "Armageddon" and Sandra Bullock.

Who signed off on releasing this movie? And could that person please get in touch with me to tell me what I was supposed to get out of it? Right now, all I got was "$&|# happens" and "Don't play with fire."

The biggest disappointment of all was the Counselor himself and his lack of character development. Why did he agree to get involved in this drug deal? The movie told us almost nothing about this, either before or after he agreed to do it. It had to do with money, and that's about all we know. Attorneys are famously cautious. When and why exactly did this one stop being cautious? No clue. For that matter, why and how did he end up being appointed to defend Rosie Perez's character? He definitely didn't seem to have the demeanor of a criminal defense lawyer, so that one needed a little explanation.

In summary, it seems like this would've done better as a three-part six- hour miniseries. That would've allowed for more backstory and character development.

Decent movie. Glad I saw it. I especially liked the way it was adapted to modern life, with cell phones and internet playing central roles. Great soundtrack. I loved the ending.

But it was still kind of disappointing. It required me to suspend too much disbelief. Some of Walter's adventures were just impossible, especially in the supposed time frame. More importantly, Walter's character transformation just wasn't believable. It came out of nowhere. Maybe it would've been a bit more believable if he had shown us more flashes of adventurousness in the first few minutes.

All of that said, I still recommend the movie regardless of whether you read or liked Thurber's original short story.