The ghost of Kevin Spacey will forever hang over this film. This film has everything going for it. Beautiful cinematography by Dariusz Wolski. An engrossing score by Daniel Pemberton. Some wonderful performances from Michelle Williams, Romain Duris, Christopher Plummer and Charlie Plummer. But, the film just does not work. It feels shiny without any soul. It is a kidnapping film without thrill. It explores greed without substance. It is long, overbearing and in the end serviceable as a film, but not very entertaining. Mark Wahlberg is horribly miscast in his role and Scott could have done better there. As for the Kevin Spacey thing, if I had not known about the history of the production of this film, I would not have even suspected the late recasting of his role to Christopher Plummer.

I loved the movie, and Christopher Plummer was great, however, the whole time he was on screen I couldn't help but envision Kevin Spacey in his place. I wish I could have seen that version of this movie.

I'm all for quality dramatizations of true stories. Something interesting & true will generally beat out something interesting & fictional. But, something interesting & partially true, while being too fictional, becomes the least enjoyable of these categories, for me. It's like, you want to hold on to being absorbed by the appeal that only a true story can provide, but if it goes too far with fictional aspects, the appeal is almost completely lost. An example of this in another movie is the police chase of the airplane at the end of Argo. If that had really happened - wow - amazing. Instead, it comes across as almost an insult to your intelligence. All the Money in the World is visually stunning with it's directing and depicted time period, sophisticated - until Mark Wahlberg shows up, trying to act sophisticated - and the basics of the story are fascinating, but as a result of its over-embellishment, I felt stuck in limbo between relishing a fascinating historical event & characters, and just enjoying something made for entertainment. Worth watching.

All the money in the world couldn't save Spacey from being recast, but thankfully, Plummer does a sterling job. And personally, after seeing Spacey in heavy prosthetics in the early trailers, the recasting was a good choice, above and beyond Spacey's alleged misdeeds. But aside from the casting controversies, the film was good. Not great - it was overlong, and there seemed to be plot holes here and there - but it was well made and acted, and deserving of a watch.

It's a good film. Not the best, but good. Michelle Williams gives her best in the role of the victim's mother and the cinematography is great in my opinion.