the cast includes angelina jolie, barry keoghan, kumail nanjiani.impressively diverse range of characters, more diverse and i think we've ever seen in a marvel cinematic superhero universe. all these things are plus points. sadly, the film itself doesn't work. it's a mess, and it's a mess for a number of reasons. one of them is that it has a kind of plodding narrative thatjumps across continents and through time periods in order to establish its backstory, and by the time we actually get to a new thing happening, we've kind of vaguely lost interest. secondly, it has too many characters, so you never end up investing in anybody — in particular... for example, if the film concentrated on kumail nanjiani's character or barry keoghan's character or something like that, you think, "ok, fine, i can invest in this." as it is, itjust feels like there's a lot of moving parts. and the third thing is the special effects just look like that — they look like special effects. they don't feel like they've got heft or weight. so, you have this weird thing that, on

the cast includes angelina jolie, barry keoghan, kumail nanjiani.film concentrated on kumail nanjiani�*s character or barry keoghan�*s character or something like that, you think, "ok, fine, i can invest in this." as it is, itjust feels like there�*s a lot of moving parts. and the third thing is the special effects just look like that — they look like special effects. they don�*t feel like they�*ve got heft or weight. so, you have this weird thing that, on the one hand, you�*ve got a great film—maker who�*s known for making these intimate portraits of characters that are... they ring with truthfulness. and then, you have this, and you�*re watching the special effects and thinking, "well, i�*m not sure how involved chloe zhao is in this." as it turns out, very involved, because she was given a great amount of creative freedom — not only in the script, but also in the whole development of the project. it is really disappointing to report that it is nothing like as good as one would want it to be. there is too much going on for too long, and weirdly, t