21

21 (Rated PG-13)

Running time: 2 hrs 3 mins

Cast:

Jim Sturgess
Kate Bosworth
Kevin Spacey

Critical consensus (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/):

**1/2 out of *****

My consensus:

* out of *****

The premise: "21" is the fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings.

My review: Pretty much, I sincerely disliked this movie. From what I've seen and read, it's not even accurate to the "true story" it claims to be based off of. But that's not what threw me. The story was so weakly played out and just bored me to death. This technique of counting cards seems like a neat idea, but they didn't put much effort into "dumbing" it down for the audience to understand. They did explain the process, but I really didn't fully grasp onto the concept. My bad I guess. And counting cards doesn't exactly make for a fast paced, entertaining casino based movie. It's a cool story, just not for a major film. The writing and direction was mainly to blame for that, but the acting was no walk in the park either. Sturgess and Spacey deliver some of the worst performances of the year in one of the most awful films of the year.

My advice: Skip it!