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We watched Oliver Stone’s W. tonight.

Those of you who know me know I’m no fan of our former president, but come on. I felt like I was watching a something that a high school student had written. I am by no means a scholar on George W. Bush, but the telling of his life seemed very one-dimensional and sophomoric.

There was, for example, an over-stressing of W.’s inability to accomplish anything on his own. While this may be a valid characteristic of the man, and while I don’t put him on my “list of smartest individuals,” there are many people in the world who receive just as much fed to them on a silver platter as W. did, who never amount to anything. Let’s not forget that he has accomplished far more than most people will ever dream of, even if it’s not a dreamy legacy.

There were things I did know about Bush’s life that the movie completely misrepresented, eg. many of the Bushisms from the movie were given at completely different points than when they occurred in his real life/career. I realize Stone may have just wanted to take some easy jabs at the ex-president, but in my mind, it merely served to weaken the truthfulness of the overall story. “If Stone is changing little things like that, what else is he changing?”

And last of all, the span of the movie just seemed to be too much. It covered most of W.’s life, which also included his involvement with his father and his father’s presidency. It also tried to cover several key individuals who were involved in both presidencies, like Colin Powell and Dick Cheney. The result of it covering so much material is that several main characters were also presented in a very one-dimensional way: Dick Cheney is the conniving oil baron; Karl Rove is all about political expediency, no matter the cost; Colin Powell is the voice of reason amongst a reasonless committee; and so on.

Anyway, bad movie. I wouldn’t recommend it.