cine-11

Rather than a tired retread, I think this was the best of the trilogy. Actually had a good, engaging spy plot, and this time they portrayed English as a competent, but hapless agent, rather than an inept buffoon, which helped the plot, and made it more interesting. Lots of gags sprinkled throughout. Rowen did a great job with the character.

This movie was obviously a Saw wannabe and failed miserably. The plot was minimalist, the acting wooden, with typical Hollywood 'been there, seen that' stereotypical characters. Watch the first 10 minutes and you have the basic premise. Now skip to the last 15 minutes and literally you'll have seen all that's worth seeing in this movie and saved yourself the interim 75 minutes of mind numbing drivel that would put Freddy Kruger to sleep. (Seriously, this is how I recommend you watch this movie). At least with Saw (a brilliant, though brutal movie), you learn something about the architect of the 'game' and his motives. Here, you're shown nothing of either, a complete void, as if the writer couldn't be bothered to actually develop a plot because he had his twist ending and that was enough. It wasn't.

I'm a big fan of Philip Dick; he was a very imaginative scifi writer, whose stories and novellas translated into very entertaining movies: Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, Paycheck, etc. So I was excited when I saw the trailer for yet another PKD story made into a movie. And then the super rating at IMDb clinched it. I wondered, though, why it did so poorly in the theaters, when the others had done so well. And then I saw this movie with 3 other people, and, I'm not exaggerating here, all three variously nodded off at some point during this boring, pointless, vapid excuse for a story. I kept waiting for something- anything - to develop that I could feel a spark of interest in. Nope, 90 mins of cinematic diarrhea. The rotoscoping was impressive, but I don't see how it served a purpose (as it might have if Sin City were done that way). Philip Dick fans (and everyone else), skip this one.