Grade:  D

Director:  Andrew Niccol		Released:  August 2002
Writer:  Andrew Niccol		MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Players:  Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Rachel Roberts		Running time:  117 minutes

Ratings Methodology

There's only one word to describe Simone: Preposterous.  And I don't mean the concept of the film itself, I'm perfectly willing to believe that an actor can be totally digital and that the public believes it.  I have no issue with that idea, but the manner in which the concept is carried out in this film is terrible.

It's clearly supposed to be a comedy, but the subject matter doesn't lend itself to comedy, so inserted are a bunch of "funny" scenes that have relatively little to do with the story.  You know that Pacino has to reveal the big secret about his actor at some point, but these unnecessary scenes left me wishing they would get on with it already.

Which leads me to my next point.  This film was too long.  It felt like forever watching this thing.  But I'll admit the saving grace is a few of the jokes made me chuckle.

Simone starts out okay and then progressively gets worse, as one unbelievability on top of another is presented to us in anticipation that we swallow it whole.  I spit it out in disgust.  I was finding it hard to believe that the talented writer behind Gattaca and The Truman Show was responsible for this film.  I was thinking to myself that some studio executive or producer got a hold of the script and instructed Niccol to make it funnier and assigned 3 other writers to "clean up the script".  Imagine my shock when the final credits rolled, and Niccol was credited for producer, writer, and director.  Based on his previous work, I think Niccol could have produced a much stronger film, he had a good premise to work with, but the execution was very bad.

- crocoPuffs