At this point, I think I actually like it more when I hate a movie or TV show. That way I get to prove I have some credibility and standards and don't just love everything.
Well thank you The Amateur for providing me an opportunity to show that I'm not just all puppy dogs and ice cream all the time! I hated this movie. It suffered from some of my biggest pet peeves in a movie. First, it was based on a book. Obviously that alone is not enough to sink a movie for me. After all, Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest trilogies ever and it is based on a book. But that is the exact point. Lord of the Rings spent over three hours (four if you watch the extended versions) making sure to tell the whole story. When a movie based on a book is too short, it always feels like an incomplete story to me. Characters and their actions don't make sense because we only have part of the story. Even with a two hour run time, it still felt incomplete.
But I'm honestly not complaining. What they kept was so boring that I don't think I could have handled another minute let alone another hour. I have heard some people comment that the movie should have been a limited run television series. Perhaps that would have worked if that extra time allowed anything to make sense... but I doubt that would be the case.
Even though I hated the movie and would never recommend anyone spend time on it, I realize people have different tastes and may love it. Therefore, I will stick to my no spoilers rule. I will only stick to things that are in the trailer for the movie or that can't spoil anything. The first example of something that made no sense was why Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead, the Punisher) is listed as being in the movie. He is literally in the movie for less than five minutes and he does absolutely nothing. I mean nothing. If his scenes were cut entirely, there would have been zero difference to the movie. It was actually kind of weird how little he was in it. In his opening scene, it seems like he will be a major factor... and poof... then he's gone.
WARNING! He's not really in the movie.
The second example of something making absolutely no sense is the pool scene that is in the trailer. Our "hero" played by Rami Malek wants to kill a guy who took part in the murder of his wife. he approaches the man at the deserted rooftop pool... OK wait. I need to explain that they made a very big deal about the fact this bad guy rented out the entire top floor including the pool. they closed it to the public and somehow Rami Malek just strolls up to him. OK whatever. And then, Rami decides to use some crazy device to decompress the air between the glass of the pool shattering it and sending a ton of water... AND GLASS falling on to a beautiful courtyard 200 stories below. Luckily the courtyard was empty on this beautiful night so no innocent people were killed. I'm not sure why no one was in the courtyard aside from them being blocked by plot armor... but whatever. I get that Rami's character can't kill anyone with a gun or a knife. He's no murderer so he needs some distance and technology. But a device to depressurize and break glass? Has he ever heard of an extension cord? Just drop that in the pool and walk away. Why risk any innocent peoples' lives below?
As soon as that happened, I asked my wife "Do you want to keep watching this?' Sadly she said yes. Then the two of us proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes scrolling on our phones while absurd spy shit happened on the TV. I was bored out of my mind. Its honestly the most bored/annoyed I have been by a movie in quite a while.