A wealth of riches that should have been so much better, Jun 14 2004

In my opinion, he's on to something, but although "Simone" begins with an interesting premise, Niccol squanders the opportunity and the end result is neither thought-provoking, sufficiently funny, or ever believable at any level even as satire. Although I generally hate to give anything away about the movies that I review, I will get into the main premise, so if you know nothing about this movie, you may want to skip the rest of the review. The movie starts out with much promise as director Viktor Taransky (played by the always great to watch Al Pacino) is having major issues with his impossible to please leading lady Nicola Anders (played with over the top gusto by Winona Rider). Since Nicola believes that she's not being treated like the star that she is, she walks out of the movie before it is finished due to what will be termed the usual "creative differences," even though it's all about ego.

At this point the movie had me hooked as I started to anticipate a satire/spoof of Hollywood a la "The Player" or the creation of an alternate universe a la "The Truman Show," or even better something that would up the ante on both. Regrettably, what follows is a mess. Due to circumstances that are best left unrevealed, Viktor is able to create "Simone," a computer generated actress who does not act like a diva and winds up charming all of Hollywood. It still sounds like it has potential, does it not?

Well, not when the movie never makes a convincing case that Simone is a good actress (in fact her scenes are not very good, but with only one exception, they don't seem to be intended to be funny) or on the other hand the movie does not make the case that her universal appeal might due to her beauty or any "X" factor that it was computer generated that somehow convinced or hypnotized people overlook her obvious lack of talent.

What follows are many attempts to be "zany" as everyone wants a piece of Simone, but that can't happen since she's not real; notwithstanding Vikotr attempts to give the people what they want in ways thar are not as funny or suspenseful as they could have been. Then the movie totally runs out of the little steam it generated entirely by rounding up the story in such a sappy and absolutely unsatisfying way, that you wind up feeling not only bored but cheated.

The performances are good all across. Catherine Keener plays Viktor's ex-wife with great aplomb and Evan Rachel Wood (a future superstar) plays his daughter. Winona Ryder also appears later in the movie and has a scene with Pacino that simply steals the movie; however in the end the story and its execution are so ridiculous that it's impossible to take the characters or their situations seriously or even laugh with/at them. Accordingly if you don't buy what you are seeing nor care what happens, it is a clear sign that the movie has failed even at a base level. It's a shame to see such an interesting premise with such a talented cast totally wasted.

As it stands Niccol does not do anything to further or make fun of a technological practice that is already with us to different degrees. First came actors doing their thing in front blue screens to enhance action/suspense movies. Then came the ability to create of masses of people via just a few to add magnitude to certain scenes/movies requiring scale. Just recently an integral character in "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy was the result of a marriage of an actor and computer animation, and there was talk of an Oscar nomination for the actor "part" of the character. Simone is already with us, but she would not be receiving double Oscar nominations for her feeble seductions in the real world, nor does the movie create one to make such a premise possible.

I give "Simone" 2 stars only because of Winona Ryder's short but vital scenes and because the cast is top-notch even as the movie falls deeper and deeper into a third rate sitcom. I hope that Niccol's next project is more than just a concept as I am sure that the mind that wrote "The Truman Show" is capable of taking a premise and making it work within its own universe.