Atonement - Movie Review

Let's start this by getting right down to it. Atonement starring Kiera Knightley and James McAvoy was boring, boring, and even more boring.

I love a great love story. The English Patient was a great love story. Titanic was a great love story. Atonement was good acting, less of a love story.

There is much hype surrounding Atonement with words such as "sparks of passion" attached to the performances. There is in fact some great moments where both actors are rather animated and doing what they do best, acting. However there is much to be said about the majority of Atonement which held my attention for little of the time spent watching it. As for sparks of anything, for me there was little seen throughout that dictated using these kinds of descriptions. It was an OK story with some well made scenes including one of which was a large scale military beach landing.

Atonement was far longer than necessary and the beginning setup to the story seemed forced and extraordinarily long. There was little real development to the actual characters. Almost as if some beautiful scenery and a continuous forward movement of the plot revolving around the fact they love each other was enough to create a film legacy. No such truth with Atonement.

A disappointment compared with what has already been put on film in the past. Nothing refreshing or interesting about the way Atonement was told.