Last night T and I felt like indulging in some brain candy, so we went to see The Recruit, the movie whose preview constantly repeats the phrase “Nothing is what it seems”. Ironically, the movie is exactly what it seems. The preview gives away most of the story, and makes every possible plot twist obvious; if the constant repetition of the tagline “Nothing is what it seems” didn’t give it away for you, you were probably sleeping.

I’m usually very slow at predicting what’s going to happen in a film, but even I could have told you the story (”Nothing is what it seems”) almost right from the beginning. At some points, we even guessed what the characters were about to say, thanks to the use of the same lines over and over again.

“I’m a scary judge of talent”
“Nothing is what it seems”
“Everything is a test”

Al Pacino even has his usual, predictable angry diatribe summing up his character’s motivation.

Mildly entertaining, but not surprising in the least and utterly forgettable.