Lee is a filmmaker who, through talent, accomplishment, and a constant working of the refs in the Hollywood system, has earned autonomy over his films. I'm all for artistic freedom, but here he could have used a bit of oversight.

Clocking in at 160 minutes, this interminable movie comes across like a rough cut. Perhaps Lee believed its length would give it gravitas. The opposite is true.

The long and the short of it is Lee and McBride plant the seeds of something incredible, they just forget to add the requisite nurturing and care required to see it grow.

As noble as Lee’s effort might be in theory, no message, however important, can distract from the film’s desperation to be epic—a self-consciousness that results in a meandering, overstuffed, and poorly structured story.