PoT8

Firstly, this is only the second review I've ever posted on IMDb so am unsure as to what constitutes a spoiler to you guys so have checked the box just to cover myself. To be honest though, the whole film is a spoiler so just don't bother.

I can't begin to write here how appalled I was that such a hyped and eagerly anticipated (not by me I must hasten to add) film could be so bad.

I wasn't one of the 'trillions' that read Dan Brown's book, and I think the film makers just assumed that everyone in the audience had read the book, and more to the point, loved the book; "so hey, we don't have to worry too much, whatever we do we're gonna make shed loads, just get it done!". I deteste these films which come out of Hollywood, which seemingly are made purely for profit and let all the important attributes needed to make a true, decent film, fall to the way-side.

It literally took about 15 minutes for me to decide that this film was a complete piece of crap. The dialogue used to move the plot along was ridiculous. In those first 15 minutes Tom Hanks (whom to my mind has only ever made a handful of decent movies at best) is giving a lecture to students. Then he gets taken aside to be told his friend was murdered, can he please come have a look. OK, strange but lets go with it. Then a french policeman tells him he must help immediately and it wouldn't be wise not to. Then a girl appears from nowhere and tells him he must come with her as the policeman is trying to kill him. Oh but wait, we can't go out the front door or anything, we have to go this way. Oh and by the way can you read codes by any chance? Oh you can? Wonderful! Then please de-code this before we go, it'll help greatly........

And so the plot goes on and on and on like this, no explanation, no reasoning just blind commands that he follows again and again from anybody that cares to give him one. At no point in this opening 15 minutes does Tom Hanks question what people are telling him, he just believes them, does what he is told and moves onto the next stage. It was like watching a computer game, with the main character being told do this, do that, don't go here and quick come this way, by supporting characters just to progress onto the next level. It was mind-numbingly boring. Does no-one else agree even slightly with this?

The strange thing is I briefly started to read the opening chapter or two of the book whilst I was away last month with my girlfriend, and my first impressions were that it read like a movie script so something doesn't quite add up........

This, for me, was one of those rare films when you are sat in the cinema feeling completely blown away. The last time I had felt this way I was a 12 year old boy sitting in the audience watching Terminator 2: Judement Day

Up to Sin City, I had never seen a film which looked anything like this. Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez moved film along and broadened the boundaries of the movie makers scope to work in. Its for this sheer originality (from within a Hollywood studio system that seems so content to spawn remake after remake and sequel after sequel that I was beginning to lose interest in mainstream American Cinema all together) that I give this movie a 10. It was visually stunning.

Ironically, I eagerly await the sequel.........