Don't be surprised if you find Part1 confusing; I certainly did.<br /><br />Obviously, a Spanish-only film will be unappealing to anyone uncomfortable with subtitles, while other-language speakers will rely too heavily on those subtitles and be forced to miss any continuity in Soderbergh's disruptive time-shifts.<br /><br />Part1 is particularly offensive at this, because he leaves out far more story than he includes, and because he contextualizes events so poorly while intruding his "edgy" style of flashbacks and flash-forwards. Viewers are left like Eddie Murphy listening to James Brown records: "What the F did I just miss? -Sabbadie-dubba!"(said James Brown).<br /><br />Prior to the final version's English voice-overs re-recorded by Benicio (helpfully less irritating than dubbing), Part1 presented unnecessary impediments, such as the fearfully episodic nature of Soderbergh's scenes, the lack of audience preparation (preamble) for things that are about to happen, while any chosen events are so minimally and Latino-centrically portrayed, that we really do feel like Eddie Murphy.<br /><br />The real problem with the Latino-centrism is that once we get used to it, we really become distrustful of the veracity and future consequences that the English-spoken interviews and flash-forwards represent. That is, Soderbergh WASTES any possible context with his disruptive and alienated English-speakers, yet they are the only real help on offer.<br /><br />The rest of Che hacking jungle and battling ill-discipline amongst his "troops" just makes for way too much cinema verite (no perspective) as it remains an insufficient exploration of Che's reasons, or of the political effect he was having wherever he went.<br /><br />There is also--and this is the big giveaway about who this epic was made for--no hindsight critique of either Che himself, nor crucially of the manipulated peasants who eventually sell him out to their own government.<br /><br />Soderbergh buries his lead because he's weak on narrative. I am gobsmacked why Benicio DelToro deliberately chose Soderbergh for this project if he knew this. It's been 44yrs, hindsight about Guevara was sorely wanted: it's what I went to see this film for, but the director diabolically robs us of that.<br /><br />The Sydney Film Festival version sported even more irritants, since eradicated:<br /><br />A) way too many blue filter shots (poor man's day-for-night, last used in C-grade Westerns); <br /><br />B) illegible, jittery subtitles yanked off too quickly, supposedly "compensating" for his unremitting Spanish; and<br /><br />C) no helpful Benicio voice-over at all.<br /><br />Both early and final release versions still have no opening credits so the audience has no idea whom/what to expect--making it such a triumph when we recognize the never (EVER) credited Matt Damon as a young priest shot mid-distance; and Soderbergh's nom-de-plume photographer credit of "Peter Andrews".<br /><br />So what's with all this HIDING, Mr Soderbergh? Could it be that he's abashed by his altering style, feeling a little clumsy, perhaps? Jeezus, he reminds me of Billy the talented-but-crazy indie director on "Entourage" who made his career-killing stinker biopic on the show about...wait for it...Pablo Escobar. Pretty close.<br /><br />David Stratton, writing in The Australian (03-Oct-2009) correctly observed that Part1 is "uneven" (and HOW), while Part2 "goes rapidly downhill" from there, charting Che's final campaign in Bolivia "in excruciating detail". <br /><br />For me, there's only 3 good things in Che Part1: i) Benicio DelToro's casting, and his marvelous PRIMARY makeup job--but not his bizarre, integrally terrible graying wriggler in Pt2--Benicio's leanness and beard are astonishingly close to some rather unflattering photos of Che; ii) Seeing Che soberly and meaningfully address the UN in 1964 as Cuba's post-revolutionary Minister of Economics; and iii) the scope of the battle of Santa Clara (near the end of Pt1).<br /><br />That's it.<br /><br />So I concur wholeheartedly with David Stratton that "(Soderbergh's) pace is deliberately slow, characterizations kept to a minimum" (as if the director hadn't known what these should be used for); "the action, such as it is, plods along withOUT a visible dramatic arc, and...feels almost unbearably slow and turgid".<br /><br />Turgid, Mr Soderbergh, turgid.<br /><br />The director's only defense can be that he didn't make this movie for us living in the non-Cuban/non-Bolivian sectors of the planet. No, he must think we don't/shouldn't need this. Instead, his awful "epic"-in-name-only had to just pretend to NOT be boring cinema verite so the remaining illiterate Latino peasants of the world would go see it. Soderbergh must be hoping they might finally feel vindicated/satisfied seeing the unadorned, unexpurgated truth about how/why Che was so expeditiously killed in Bolivia.<br /><br />I just hope THEY liked it.(4/10)