Big movie disappointments

Saw two highly anticipated movies this weekend and neither were what I had expected or hoped.

Vantage Point. I've been seeing ads for this movie for months. It has a terrific cast and seemed like a really fresh approach - a Rashamon style examination of a single event from the perspective of several characters. It was well made, and it started out great - very intriguing, keeping you guessing. But in the end, it was more of an action movie, with ridiculous coincidences guiding the plot developments and no insight into the characters at all. Even the complicated terrorist plot is completely generic - you never find out who this group is or why they're targeting the president. Fine for its target audience I'm sure, but not enough "there" there for me.

There Will Be Blood. Not sure I even "got" this movie. Two and a half hours of watching a completely miserable man be completely miserable for no apparent reason. Daniel Day-Lewis is great of course, and he carries the entire movie, but you get absolutely no rationale for this character's many destructive actions, so the performance, for me, was not that involving. Having seen quite a few high end movies this year, I can say that I saw many performances that I found more moving and meaningful. And to call the pace "deliberate" is generous - the movie could have easily been an hour shorter and would have lost nothing of the main story arc. I thought No Country for Old Men was much more visually interesting, and the movies were filmed in virtually the same location. I'm glad I saw it, but I found most other movies I saw this year to be much more appealing and satisfying.