Average. Down to Fincher & Fassbender.

Seemed like Fincher who demands everything to be perfect, demands 100 takes if it's not right was half asleep with this one. Contrivances, things that didn't quite make sense piled up.

Fassbender. He's not a great actor. A good one, yes. I like him in a lot of things.

He doesn't have the ability to push this character to a higher level. A transformation to an iconic level, which is what this movie needed. His performance was bland, and he added very little to it. As usual, he just played himself again, or that version of himself he always plays to varying degrees.

The night before I watched Nightcrawler. What Gyllenhaal did with Lou Bloom was something else, and his performance broke through the screen. Different characters for different stories yes, but the comparison is that Gyllenhaal brought some magic to the character and Fassbender brought very little.

Fassbender did play the stoic silent type, but he wasn't showing anything extra where other better actors can act with micro-movements. Being very still, doing very little but showing a lot with slight shows of emotion. Even Ryan Gosling pulled it off in Drive.

Fassbender wasn't entertaining to watch through the whole thing, flat, and forgettable. If that was the intention then it's a failing on Fincher's part for directing him that way.

Higher-level transformative actors like De Niro, Joaquin Phoenix, Gary Oldman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gyllenhaal could bring a lot more to this character making a more interesting anti-hero. A hero that you know is in the wrong, but you're glued to the screen following them.

Sorry Finchbender, but it's a thumbs down from me.