As Fernando Meirelles still clings to the goodwill of the now classic status of his 2002 outing City of God, his new film 360 finally hits theatres after opening last year’s BFI London Film Festival.

A globetrotting spider-web of stories, 360 tries to tell a tale of love and consequence as we follow a number of individuals from all races, colours and creeds in their current or potential relationships. We watch young Mirka (Lucia Siposová) model for some photos for a website so that her pimp can advertise her to clients online, the first of which is Michael (Jude Law) who doesn’t go through with the act and immediately calls his wife (Rachel Weisz) who then breaks off her affair with a twentysomething Brazilian photographer before it goes too far and so the story continues…

Firstly, 360’s biggest problem is that it breaks the original sin of film. It’s dull. A few decent performances aside – take a bow Hopkins and Foster – there was very little to take away from it. Obviously having a stab at the Iñárritu style of narrative, Meirelles never once finds any sort of sure footing with the complexity of the story, and the same goes for Peter Morgan’s severely lacking script. It quickly becomes swamped with too many characters which needs to be said, aren’t all that connected in the long run.

In no way attempting to feel unfairly harsh, but I struggled to even find a point to it. What was Meirelles really wanting to say? He seemingly had this wafer thin thread of a theme, knew he wanted to have a little experiment with disjointed storytelling and this was the outcome. There’s no voice, no stamp, it just merely plods along without any real urgency or interest. I hate to say it but its woefully average filmmaking – uneven, sloppy and only once creating any shred of tension.

However, it does get saved for time by the introduction of Anthony Hopkins and Ben Foster. Never on screen together, they are joined together by the beautiful Laura (Maria Flor). With Hopkins’ story and relationship with the young Brazilian being melancholic and sweet, her time with Foster character is completely the opposite. A recently released sex offender trying to find a better path, battling against his urges as the Laura’s advances become more evident. And this is the only time in the movie where the audience is actually thinking ‘What’s going to happen?’, although that feeling mostly comes from Foster’s intense and rather unsettling performance.

360, really is a big swing and a miss from a director and writer that, in all honestly, you would expect better from. There’s no heart in it, with all that is left on screen being a hollow vacuum of a stagnantly stale and tiresome story.