Maybe it was because of my high expectations, or the fact that I’ve been looking forward to it for a month, but I found 21, the movie chronicling the exploits of the infamous MIT Blackjack team, to be utterly underwhelming. It’s not often that I’ll make the effort to go a see a movie on opening night. I don’t handle crowds very well and prefer to hit a week night showing to avoid the noise. I made an exception on 21 because I was just so excited.

First the good parts:

Kevin Spacey was amazing as always, as was the only other true veteran there, Lawrence Fishburne. Kate Bosworth managed to downplay her amazing hotness to capture a kind of girl next door charm. The cinematography was traditionally flashy for Vegas, which was well suited.

So what went wrong?

This movie was all flash and no bang. There wasn’t even just a little bit of dramatic tension anywhere in the movie. Even seeing the potential consequences of getting caught from the very beginning, Director Robert Luketic couldn’t have made me nervous if I was the one getting the beating. Probably the most anemic performance of all came from Male Lead Jim Sturgis. I understand that the the part requires a shy genius, but the you never really got that spark of something special from the part of Ben.

My advice… wait until the DVD release.

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