morgan-659-312842

I was encouraged to watch this by a review in a national newspaper which essentially put it in the same basket as Ludwig. And it had Timothy Spall as the central character! Couldn't be better! Actually it could. It could be a thousand times better and still be hanging on to Ludwig's coat-tails. Just about everything is wrong with this effort. The writing is just downright poor, splattered with extremely lame jokes and suffering from an absence of any semblance of mystery. As for the acting, Mr Spall excepted of course, was diabolical. After 5 minutes I was already tired of the lead female character. The others were even worse. Overall, a complete waste of time.

I can't compare this with the original as it is many years since I watched the first but it doesn't matter as this film does stand alone. At 2hrs 14 min. It is at least 45 minutes too long. The length of the film necessitates a considerable amount of padding which occasionally drags your finger towards the fast forward button. The special effects aren't bad - not excellent but acceptable. It's best not to comment on dialogue if watching the English subtitled version as it's not terribly convincing. The characters range from likeable to not very. The not very could easily have been left out as they add little to the story and are very annoying. It would have been better to have the others pursue the story on their own. The acting varies considerably ranging from quite good to poor and there is a fair amount of over-acting especially with the annoying characters. As for tension, well that barely exists as so much time is taken up with arguing and chatting that any build up of excitement tends to dissipate. There a lot of little things like characters pressing a button or pulling a lever and then pointing at it which to some viewers might seem amusing or odd. Maybe that's what Japanese workers really do. Overall this is somewhat drab, unexciting and seemingly never-ending.

The majority of reviews seem to lean towards this film being a total mess and a waste of resources. To some extent there is nothing to be gained by pointing to what is wrong with this effort. That is because everything is so wrong. The script was apparently written by a bevy of 'writers' but could so easily have been cobbled together by a group of 8 year olds. The acting is just appalling which is very disappointing considering the actors involved and some of the things they are asked to do for the sake of American supremacy and 'decency' are stomach-churning. The film is a waste of resources by any measure and it is unbelievable that people were paid to write such trash and a studio was stupid enough to make the thing.