Merchant of Venice
While the costumes looked interesting, the scenery enticing and the storyline compelling, I fell asleep (literally) within twenty minutes of the start of this feature.
As a movie and story lover, this is not unheard of from me, but does happen from time to time.
The problem I had was that given the Shakespearean era dialogue, I had to make a decision within the first five minutes as to whether or not and to what extent I was willing to work to comprehend the dialogue and, hence, follow the story. I decided that I had come to the movie to be entertained and that if I wished to be educated, I could just as well do that by reading the script. That was the death knell to the performance.
For the period of time I was awake, I had the impression that the actors, Al Pacino in particular, had so much trouble faithfully recounting the lines to the point that all drama regarding their content was lost in the translation.
He effectively said, "You spit on me last week, so I'm not going to charge you interest but instead extract a pound of flesh if your payment is late," with all the verve and drama of:
"To get to Manhattan, you take the #47 to Queens and then transfer to the blue line until you get to 5th Avenue and 42nd Street." While saying this, his eyelids appeared to droop as did my own.
At approximately the thirty-two minute point (I looked at my watch) Terri woke me up and we left the theater.
For me it was a thumbs down without ever really getting into the story. The dialogue was just too laborious to follow.
This time my vote is independent of audience or critic and I give it a D+ with the plus being for the lovely costumes, spending the money to hire an all star cast and settings. Unfortunately all of that was wasted on me, although it was a good nap--quiet, dark and peaceful until Terri woke me up.
She couldn't help but notice that I had fallen asleep, saying that I was sufficiently immersed in somnambulance that my chin had dropped, indicating more of a deep REM sleep than a more superficial eye resting phase from which I might have recovered.
Thumbs down! Thirty-two minutes into the performance we were out the door and on our way to the car. I offered her another movie on the way home (we always try to have a contingency plan), but she said, "After that I don't think I could take another disappointment."
