21

After a long movie drought we got back into the swing of things today by venturing out to see "21". 21 is based on the book 'Bringing Down the House' by Ben Mezrich. I have sold several copies of the book and wish now I'd read one because it must have been a better story than the film.

Don't get me wrong, Kevin Spacey was a treat to watch, which is usually the case. Laurence Fishburne also was good to see but the whole movie feels very Movie of the Week. Everything that you know going in is about what you leave with - they don't give you much more than the trailer or the tv commercials and there are no big surprises here.

Before even getting into so much of the the story or the actors, I have to say that Pueblo Tinseltown dropped the ball big time today. There was quite a crowd, which shocked us because we didn't realize it was Spring Break. We went to the first matinee (as usual) hoping to avoid the crowds and oh boy were were wrong! A line to get tickets, and only 2 lines at the concession. The second concession stand wasn't even open today! That led to popcorn lines going across the lobby and nearly out the front door. Our theater was just about sold out and we were amazed to see almost NO ONE eating any snacks. We counted - saw 3 people who had popcorn or drinks! Everyone knows that the ticket sales are not where theaters make their money - it's on the concessions. Hundreds of people willing to spend $5 to $10 each today who sat through their movies with nothing because it was just impossible to get close to the stand to buy anything.

We were hungry, primed for our big bag of popcorn, stomachs queasy, and frankly that made us grumpy so this movie gets an even lower rating from us for that.

Back to the plot. It moves pretty slow. The genius people who are so good at counting seem pretty bad at most other things in their lives. The characters were all very one dimensional and .... boring. The story starts to go in one direction and you have hope but then, naw. You get nothing there. Then it goes in another direction and you think now it's going to ... but no.

The main character, Ben Campbell, is played by Jim Sturgess, who we didn't remember ever seeing before and frankly aren't looking forward to seeing again. We lost count of how many identical scenes there are of closeups of his flat expression face. We watch him watching things, watch him looking at people, watch him, watch him, mostly expression less and staring with the constant Aw Shucks face. Maybe it was because we lacked Raisinettes today but that got old quick.

Not our favorite movie, we were deeply disappointed with the entire movie experience today. Our rating is a 2. Without the "1".