**Amsterdam's uneven pacing and erratic story mishandled its amazing potential and left me wondering when it would finally end.** Amsterdam comes roaring out of the gate with a fast-paced, quirky, charming, and unique mystery of the likes of Sherlock Holmes or Knives Out. The list of celebrities and actors continues to grow as almost every face in this movie is another a-lister making an entertaining appearance. I was so excited to see what happened next and was surprised when the story suddenly screeched to a halt for a very long slow flashback that didn't offer much to the plot. I hoped the exciting pace would return when the story returned to its original narrative, but the risk and urgency had been replaced by a scattered collection of arbitrary dialogue and scenes that lingered much longer than needed. The pacing lagged almost an hour before ramping back up in the final act. Amsterdam had so much potential but floundered in its attempts to be whimsical and unique. The film's best part was Michael Shannon and Mike Myers' quirky bird-loving spies. Every time they were on the screen, I couldn't help but laugh. Christian Bale logged another amazing performance, as expected. But even with entertaining characters, great performances, and an exciting opening and conclusion, Amsterdam fumbled all its fantastic elements and ended up making my eyes heavy and my heart yearn to go to bed early.

_Amsterdam_ does nothing to reinvent the wheel but does everything well enough that I had a pleasant time in the theater. The performances all around were excellent. Christian Bale was brilliant in this film, every new role Bale finds himself in he knocks out of the park, and I continually ask myself what can't he do? Margot Robbie was really great too. In many of her roles, her Harley Quinn mannerisms creep in and while I find that fun it was really refreshing to see her get away from that in Amsterdam. John David Washington was fine in his role, I never really find him to have great performances, but always does enough to get the job done, that can be said again with his performance here. The supporting roles were all fine too Raimi Malek and Anna Taylor-Joy did well and had funny chemistry together. Mike Myers and Robert De Niro did fine as well. While the story was not overly original, I had a blast following it to its finality. There are many fun twists and turns along the way and found a way to keep me gripped and entertained throughout it's near two- and half-hour runtime. While many critics are giving these harsh reviews, I think it is a good film that is fun watch despite its flaws. **Score:** _68%_ | **Verdict:** _Good_

Even if it is based on true events, it's all just a bit to slapstick and fa-fetched for me. The story centres around "Berendsen" (Christian Bale) who is asked by his pal "Woodman" (John David Washington) to help out the widowed "Mrs. Meekins" (Taylor Swift) whose husband - a former American general - has mysteriously died. A slightly dodgy autopsy follows and pretty soon, someone has gone under the wheels of a car and our two gents are being sought by the police and by a clandestine organisation. Can they stay free and can we discover what is truly going on? Well David O. Russell decides to tell the story by chopping and changing the timelines, and so we retrace our steps to a WWI hospital where both men find themselves in the care of the slightly enigmatic nurse "Valerie" (Margot Robbie) who collects the shrapnel she takes from their wounded bodies and makes works of art from it. The three form an immutable bond before time and circumstances drive them apart, only for them to reunite unexpectedly as their current-day dilemma reaches it's denouement. The film looks great, certainly. The attention to detail, the costumes and the score all work well. It's the narrative, though, that really struggled for me. The story is just too insubstantial to sustain the 2¼ hour running time and as ever, I found Robbie a remarkably sterile actress to watch. Nobody could ever cause Bale of not trying, but there is a distinct lack of on-screen chemistry across the board here. None of that is helped by Rami Malek's rather underwhelming contribution as "Tom" - her wealthy if eccentric and clearly manipulating brother. Oddly enough, I found myself thinking this had something of the Agatha Christie to it - and maybe it would have worked better with a much tighter cast on a stage where the humour and quirkiness of the characterisations could have been better exploited? As it is, though, this sort of meanders back and forth with little impetus and I have to say I was a bit bored half way through.