THERE WILL BE BL-AAAAH....

THERE WILL BE BLOOD is an Academy nominee for Best Movie of 2007. Now, I trust the Academy on some movie choices and a lot of time I give them the benefit of the doubt...but too often they throw in the compulsory Epic nominee. That one movie that spans in inordinate amount of time and is given a free pass to be less than perfect because it is so difficult to pull off a truly great epic. Truly great ones like Gandhi, or Lord of the Rings. THERE WILL BE BLOOD is the token epic that gets the nod solely upon the excellent acting of Daniel Day-Lewis, some clever cinematography, and shocking scenes.

The reclusive Daniel Day-Lewis pokes his head out of the ground to play lead character Daniel Plainview, an obsessive oil tycoon bent on doing anything to earn a buck. Plainview is remorseless in abandoning his own son, taking on a religion he didn't believe in, and even murder to own the land covering an oil reserve. And Day-Lewis morphs into the character as seemlessly as Johnny Depp.

He duels morals with the young naive town priest (Paul Dano). This becomes a battle of religion versus money. Plainview compromises himself to win over the town by aligning himself with the priest with the sole purpose to take advantage of him. The problem with this battle is that the poor priest is greatly overmatched by a master of the game.

The rest of the movie is entirely forgettable unless you dig epics (the movie clocks in at about 2 and a half hours...and it feels like it). The concerto of violins used as background music are meant to be artsy but come off as forced and cheap...something you'd hear in a B horror movie and not an Oscar nominee.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD echoes a much better epic done 67 years ago called CITIZEN KANE (*SPOILER* instead of an oil tycoon, it's a newspaper tycoon!). For Day-Lewis, who pulls off a barely likeable character, and for the movie itself, THERE WILL BE NO OSCAR.

6 dry oil beds out of 10.