So. I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at those Rotten Tomatoes reviews and the trailer and thinking, “This is going to be AWESOME! BRING IT ON!”

But you are going to be sorely, sorely disappointed. You are going to sit through the first few minutes of the film, hoping, praying, though you don’t often pray, that it will get better. Time will appear to slow down. This is, in part, due to the cameraman following the lead character for every single step of her foot race with a villain. You may not know this, but watching every single step of a footrace in vivid, 1080p detail, is actually really, really boring. Try it. You’ll have to get two friends, because being actively involved in the chase will provide too much excitement to get the feeling just right. With a pellet gun (or something, nothing that would cause fatal damage, mind), shoot one friend somewhere tender. Then quickly hand the gun to the other friend. Watch as the chase ensues (try not to shoot the first friend in somewhere that will prevent them from running quickly). It would be best, for you, if you had a golf cart, to follow along. So ride your golf cart alongside your friend and your friend in pursuit. Maybe have someone else drive you, so you can focus on the pursuer’s face the entire time. Otherwise you might crash into a bank of trash cans, totally invalidating the experiment, and the next time you get your two friends together you can bet it will be a lot harder to shoot one of them without the other one tattling on you and getting you beat up. So while you’re watching the chase, you’ll probably start thinking: “Man, could I not get Angelina Jolie to do the pursuer part? And I don’t even like her all that much.” Anyway, try doing that for five to seven minutes.

For purposes of the experiment, it would be most helpful if you could get Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and Hedy Lamarr all standing around. Maybe you could get hors d’oeuvres for them to munch on. Make sure you tell them that you would appreciate quiet, while you’re watching the chase, so they don’t disturb the environment you’re trying to set up. If you do get this setup, you’re pretty close to what this movie is like. Only less painful.

To really complete the simulation, have your friend, who’s driving the golf cart, every once in a while interrupt your observation of the chase to say something like: “Repeat that back to me.” “What did Michael just say?” “Why is Ewan eating the shrimp, he told me he was allergic to shellfish?” “Was Antonio just licking that tree frog? I TOLD him not to lick the tree frogs!” Make sure your friend says these things in clipped, military-like bursts. Also, if you do have a tree frog problem, the best way to deal with it is not to invite Antonio Banderas over to lick them all away, you should get proper pest control for that.

With all of these elements in place, you probably don’t need to watch this movie, or at least the first 30 or so minutes of it, which my wife and I suffered (well, if this is the extent of our “suffering” we’re kind of soft… but you see what I mean) through on Saturday night before finally ending our own suffering in an uncanny and, frankly, BRAVE move, and simply turned off the movie. We hugged each other and wept for a short period once the screen went black. And, after that moment, we emerged, stronger, more resilient, and I set off in search of a golf cart, pellet gun, and two friends.