that's it . the nostalgia trip is heading for a long walk off of a short pier . i mean , really , who pitched this movie , and how did they pull it off ? was it , " come on , let's revisit those good old days when we were worried the reds would nuke the crap outta us . " or , " it's potential nuclear holocaust . . . with a heart . " and , if i didn't know the answer to the question of what moronic producer would buy the rights to the project ( i'll give you a hint : he's also the film's biggest star ) , i'd ask that , too . thirteen days , the second film of 2000 to do a number on the massachusetts accent ( really , you should hear costner , he sounds like a drunk new jerseyite ) , deals with a time period of 13 days during which we almost destroyed the world . no , it's not crimson tide , part 2 . it's the cuban missle crisis , and it's presented here to us by the incapable hands of director roger donaldson , who gives us such terrors as the " artistic " blending of black and white and a digitally constructed white house exterior . and , spending two-and-a-half hours exploring as few facets of this story as possible , roger donaldson tries to keep us guessing . his goofy mind tricks are so incompetent that , at one point as the film underwent technical difficulties , i had to just yell out , " so come on , did we all die or what ? " there really isn't much that i can tell you about the events within thirteen days that you can't read in books , but in case you never attended junior high and think the cuban missile crisis was a bad porno , here's the story : in 1962 , the soviets began putting nukes in cuba , hoping to blow us away . forget the fact that we had missiles in europe and had similar attack capabilities -- the soviets could have blown us away in about five minutes , and , as americans , we were really pissed off about this . admittedly , the cuban missile crisis was a bit before my time , but come on , do we have to see the movie ? and even if we have to see the movie , does it have to be this bad ? every time a new character is introduced , they come complete with a subtitle bearing their name and position , and are then greeted . it's surprising bruce greenwood doesn't wear a nametag that reads , " hello , my name is mr . president . " dramatic family montages , cheap stock footage , cliched characters , they're all here . and , even worse , the film drags on for the aforementioned 2 1/2 hours , all failing to build even a semblance of suspense . imagine apollo 13 if it were made really badly -- bad filmmaking coupled with an ending that you can't change ( though donaldson actually tries to trick us at many points by interspersing stock footage of nuclear explosions into the movie , we know better ) . the result is not a reliving of the cuban missile crisis : it's a sickening exploitation of a historical event . don't believe me ? go to the movie's web site ( see below ) and check out the strategic military exercise , a game in which it's your patriotic responsibility to destroy all russian forces . 
