Painfully dull, with nearly the entire movie live action of the actual crossword puzzle championship at a Marriot in Connecticut. This movie was clearly intended to imitate Spellbound, but was not nearly as fun as the latter, a movie that explored the children's backgrounds and family dynamics and THEN showed them at the competition.<br /><br />O.K. the New York Times crossword puzzles are fun, and created by brilliant people. I get it. But is it any wonder that the newspaper namesake raved about this movie?<br /><br />Although close-up shots of faces in angst were designed to make the watcher feel the excitement brewing among the contestants, we didn't ever get a chance to know them, or for that matter, care much about them. The closest insight we got to one of the top young contenders was watching him do crossword puzzles rapidly on his computer.