w.

George W. Bush's presidency is one of polarization, partisanship and finger-pointing. Hilariously, Oliver Stone's W. fails to reflect any of this. Instead, Stone blandly depicts Bush's life and administration with minimal artistic interpretation or reinvention. The movie sets out to be entertaining, brandishing the tagline "based on a true story," but merely ends up playing like a documentary with particularly high-production values.

Stone weaves together Bush's rise from delinquent, underachieving youth to successful adult with inside glimpses of him and his cabinet executing the Iraq war. The whole thing is tied together by the sense that for his entire life, W. was dominated by his attempts to gain the favor of his father, George Herbert Walker Bush. This is believable to a point, but Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser stretch the notion so far that W. seems as though he has no self-motivation outside of a dogged hedonism in his younger life. Stone ends up painting him in a good light, and he can't seem to decide whether he wants to crucify or appreciate the man. The story has no punch.

More interesting are the performances, which give the movie its only worthwhile aspects. Josh Brolin is excellent as W., nailing the mannerisms and personality, but not just copying the real man. The rest of the cast (save Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, who overracts) embody their characters exactly as Stone and Weiser seem to intend. This means that Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld are completely inept, Cheney pure evil, Powell a saint and Rove a creepily efficient shadow to W. At least they take a stance on these individuals, which can't be said of the rest of W.

Too soon, Oliver, too soon.