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Disappointed I was. After being thoroughly excited to see this film ever since I first caught wind of it, I left the theatre in a state of bewilderment. How could such a masterful director and a bevy of talented performers and crew produce such meaningless and pointless drivel? More than that, how could they have fooled damn near the entire population into thinking they had actually made a good film? At this moment the film is #71 on the IMDb top 250. The #71st best movie of all time? Are you kidding me?

Brad Pitt fails to register a single honest emotion. Pitt utters every single line in exactly the same manner. I don't think his facial expression changed once throughout the entire 2 and half hour run time. Benjamin Button himself is not even remotely close to a fully developed character. He plays piano and likes Daisy. That's all we know about him. Oh, but he ages backwards. Yet that fact lends absolutely no circumstance to the entire picture until the very end of the movie when the writers needed a cheap copout in order to get out of the complete mess that they had put themselves in, it's like "Wait a minute, we can't possibly earn an Oscar if this thing actually ends happily, let's make our main character do something only a complete S.O.B. would do to create some tension and then completely excuse him for it." It's cheap, easy-way-out writing.

The special effects are superb, do not let this review diminish the efforts of the technical team. The characters change drastically physically, yet they do not go through a single change mentally. They are all static. It's almost as if the performers put too much faith in the make up and effects teams and didn't even bother to put a different edge on their characters. In my opinion, Benjamin and Daisy were utterly boring, the Clockmaker who is given two minutes of runtime was a far more interesting character than those two. Every scene in the hospital halted any momentum that the film was gaining, they simply brought everything to a dead stop. There was absolutely no point to the scenes at all, the moments of revelation were completely predictable, and how many times do we need a film that is set up by somebody reading a diary? And holy crap, Daisy's southern accent miraculousy became about ten times as thick as she lay dying in the hospital than it did in the early years of her life. Weird....

All told, the film seemed like it was brewed in a lab to win awards. However, the filmmakers forgot a couple of important things: developed characters, meaningful scenes, conflict, and a believable ending.

I think a lot of people have simply missed the point of this film. People either love it or hate it based upon the amount of gore and violence in it. But what if Miike pulled a trick on all of you? The majority of the violence takes place off screen, and most of what you do see is completely outrageous and not meant to be taken seriously.

Make no mistake about it, this movie is about love. Sick and twisted love, but it's love none the less. Kakihara's search for a new lover and Karen's desire to win Kakihara's heart are the prime examples. It's something we all want, but these characters go to extreme ends to acquire it.

The characters are all amazingly defined and well written. But the one that everyone seems to have no clue about is Jijii played by Shinya Tsukamoto. We all know he wants to destroy the Anjo group but why? Well it doesn't matter. Jijii is Takashi Miike, the director personified within the film. Think about it. His sole purpose is to set the characters on their paths to the final confrontation. He even exhibits god-like powers. This is evident when he tells a lesser character "Ichi has more important matters to take care of" and disrobes to reveal a bodybuilder's physique. This is a prime example of the intricacies that Miike has layered about the film that nobody seems to pick up on.

When you combine all that Miike has slipped below the radar with the brilliantly written character's, Miike's amazing style and some of the most unnerving music I've ever heard you have an instant classic. I recommend everyone take a second look at this movie and analyze what you've seen, because I can garuantee that you didn't even begin to pick up on all of it.

Some viewers will witness the rape and murders and dismiss it as exploitive dribble, but that's simply not the case here. It's an excellent well crafted picture I believe everyone should experience.

Ok, for some reason a lot of people are down on "Predator 2". Yeah, there's no Arnold, but Danny Glover does just fine by me. The action is superb, with plenty of nice scenes including the penthouse and the showdown between the Predator and the federal agents in the meat plant. Bill Paxton, Reuben Blades and Maria Conchita Alonso are solid as ever, providing support as Glover's fellow cops. Of course, they're not as cool as Bill Duke, Jessie Ventura, or Sonny Landaham, but "Predator" did have as perfect of a supporting cast as you can get.

A few people will remark about the negative stereotypes in the film. Latino's in a police station??? What a suprise, it is LA!!! I mean, how can you scream about negative racial stereotypes when 3 of the 4 main protaganists of the movie were minorities. All the dickheads were white....hmmm....maybe I'M onto something here....*blah*

The film does have a certain unpleasant atmosphere about it, which I happen to like....however some people may find it too dark and dreary.

It's a good film that's been given a pretty bad rap. 7/10