So-So

I liked the basic ideas of the story--the setting, the characters, the basic plot etc. There was some fantastic cinematography with lots of gorgeous shots of St. Petersburg and so on. I like Christian Slater and I thought Sofya Skya was impressive, too. And I really dug the ballerina kung fu stuff (keep in mind that I'm never looking for realism in films).

But I felt that:

(1) the script had some serious problems, including:
(a) the structure and pacing weren't good (including that the revenge/ballerina kung fu stuff should have been a much earlier/bigger part of the film)
(b) it was confusingly written with respect to all of the bonds and other financial stuff--which was important because it was one of the major motivations. I caught myself having to just say, "Okay, so there's some fishy money stuff going on" and not worry about the details, but that was especially frustrating once we got to the rail station locker scene and beyond,
(c) the surprise criminal wasn't given sufficient development and motivation, etc., and
(2) the direction was pretty bad, with lots of overly serious but extremely cheesy staging of scenes, handling of the performances, editing, and so on--it reminded me of a trying-to-be-uber-hip-and-stylistic-but-really-just-corny Bollywood film at times--with the result that it was often unintentionally funny . . . and occasionally unintentionally hilarious, as with Angus Macfadyen's harp-playing scenes for example.

Overall a bit of a frustrating 2/4 from me.