There’s absolutely no reason a story this cookie cutter should run for more than two hours. Instead of intensity, you get repetition.
Brad Pitt doesn’t really act here, he just plays Brad Pitt. The supporting cast doesn’t fare any better. The characters are flat, underwritten and given nothing to do except orbit Pitt’s presence.
Then there’s the love story, which feels stapled onto the script to tick a box. It adds nothing to the plot, kills the pacing and makes the film even harder to sit through. The dialogue doesn’t help either, forced, and at times laughably bad.
And yet, even with Hans Zimmer’s score pulsing in the background, the film can’t build momentum. You keep waiting for that one scene to lift it up, the goosebumps, the spectacle, the spark but it never comes. By the time the credits roll, you’re left with a film that’s all noise, no soul.