DVD Review: Blindness

Blindness
Written by: Don McKellar
Based on the novel by: José Saramago
Directed by: Fernando Meirelles
Starring: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Danny Glover, and Gael García Bernal

Blindness is about an unnamed city that is ravaged by an epidemic of sudden "White Blindness." The story follows the first victims of the illness who are quarantined inside an abandoned mental hospital and how quickly humanity deteriorates in the conditions they find themselves in.

This was one of my most anticipated films of last year. It looked like it would be an amazing film and I couldn't wait to see it. I didn't get the chance to until now.

That is probably a good thing because this movie is terrible.



I said before the cut that I was really looking forward to this movie. It looked like it would be a powerhouse of emotion and drama. In reality it's devoid of emotion and really only serves to show how bad humanity will turn out during a crisis. There is absolutely nothing to root for. Nothing to really hope for. It's just dark for the sake of dark. The characters are unlikable, the tension fails to captivate and it just falls flat.

There are some interesting Visual choices here. We see a lot of scenes that simulate the symptoms of the "white blindness" everyone experiences. But instead of putting us in the shoes of the characters it only distracts and annoys.

The worst part of this movie is the ridiculous attempts at walking like a blind person. Everyone fails miserably at this. Everyone looks more like zombies than blind people. They shuffle around groaning like the undead on a brain hunt.

No emotion, terrible acting, zero suspense, and a barely there plot add up to one of the biggest disappointments of the year and one of the worst films of 2008.

As for the DVD, well, it's light on features only containing a making of featurette and deleted scenes which to be honest I wasn't even intrigued enough to watch.

Blindness is the kind of movie you are mad at yourself for giving up two hours of your life to watch. It's not bad enough to be lampooned and its not near good enough to discuss.

I've actually wasted too much time on it already.

Blindness is on DVD now.