Movie Review – Atonement

OK – I gave in and went to see Atonement today! I usually like period pieces, especially if they are about unrequited love or deep romance! But, I just wasn’t interested in watching this one – for some reason, it just didn’t reach out and grab me. So, I almost didn’t go see it – even though I gave it serious thought every weekend when trying to decide what movies to go see, I never put it in the top choices! Finally, today, it was down to Atonement or Vantage Point! Vantage Point looked intriguing to me, but I really wasn’t in the mood to “think” too much – I really just wanted to see a movie that would touch my heart. So – against my better judgement, I listened to the critics who have been shooting down Vantage Point and seem to really love Atonement! That should have been my clue to just stay home!

I went to the 5:10 show, so that meant that I paid full price instead of matinee price! I got in to the theater and the movie started — almost immediately, I was bored and contemplating leaving! But – I paid full price and wasn’t going to waste that kind of money! I kept thinking that it has to get better! I was WRONG!!! It was slow, uninteresting, and confusing!!! The scenes kept bouncing all around and it was really hard to keep track of what was happening and what time frame they were in!!! Several scenes started in the middle or almost end of the scene and then when it was over, it started showing the same scene again from the beginning to show what happened to get them there – it was so WEIRD!!! Then, later in the film, they had real flash backs where they were in a later time frame and then went back to a previous time frame! And then, they were suddenly MANY years later! AND – in the end, it is revealed that some of the facts that were presented were “imagined” by the character telling the story – they never actually happened – making it all even MORE confusing! There was some good acting, but there was so much about the movie that was just strange and confusing, that it far out-weighed the good acting and made it difficult to put my finger on anything that was worth watching!

I will admit, though, that the last 10 minutes were good — they actually managed to pull it all together and get it to make sense — but it was almost 2 hours too late!!!! I absolutely do NOT recommend this movie and am incredibly sorry I saw it!

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