The opening montage is artful and interesting, and as you're watching the movie, you probably are interested in the premise, that life would be very complicated if you couldn't recognize faces any longer. So you sit back and prepare for something that might be along the lines of "Insomnia", an thriller with a real foundation in psychological manipulation, with twists and surprises to keep you guessing.
And after that opening montage, it's pretty much all just clichés and tired plot devices and stale acting. We've seen the leads do much better than this. The 'filler' scenes are so trite they feel like they were written and shot in one take. And the 'action' scenes are shot in a way that does engage us at all. And as for the plot itself... have we ever seen a woman fleeing a villain and trip before? Have we seen the protagonist stuck in a situation where the hero has to rush to save her but he can't get to her quickly? And finally, the main crux of the film, the face blindness, is interesting for about three minutes, and then it gets incredibly stale, and yet we have to sit through another hour+ of it. Give this story to Chris Nolan and you'd have something fantastic - but this incarnation of it is really not worth wasting the time on.
And after that opening montage, it's pretty much all just clichés and tired plot devices and stale acting. We've seen the leads do much better than this. The 'filler' scenes are so trite they feel like they were written and shot in one take. And the 'action' scenes are shot in a way that does engage us at all. And as for the plot itself... have we ever seen a woman fleeing a villain and trip before? Have we seen the protagonist stuck in a situation where the hero has to rush to save her but he can't get to her quickly? And finally, the main crux of the film, the face blindness, is interesting for about three minutes, and then it gets incredibly stale, and yet we have to sit through another hour+ of it. Give this story to Chris Nolan and you'd have something fantastic - but this incarnation of it is really not worth wasting the time on.