JG Ballard's dystopian science fiction novels have long been regarded as being unfilmable. Ironically it was Steven Spielberg who first made a film of one of his books, the autobiographical Empire of the Sun which was also more conventional.

In High Rise the building clad in some kind of neo 1970s decor is really the star as it represents the social strata. A society in decay. The film opens where there has been a total nihilistic breakdown amongst the occupants where we see a man roasting a dog's leg before we jump back three months earlier.

Dr Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) is a middle class doctor, almost an every-man who is at ease both going up and down the social classes in the tower block. He is helped by Charlotte Melville (Sienna Miller) a sexy neighbour who helps Laing get to the upper floors where tastes are more refined. Better parties, music, swimming pool and restaurants for example.

Richard Wilder (Luke Evans whose get up reminds me a lot of actor Stanley Baker) is a truculent documentary maker who lives near the ground floor with his wife and children amongst the rest of the block's poorer tenants. Wilder is aware and resentful of the inequality that exists in building. He has to put up with electricity outages, lifts not working properly, inferior restaurants, shops, parties. Wilder wants to expose the building's architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) who lives on the top floor and he also happens to be Laing's occasional squash partner.

As we head towards hedonism, one-upmanship, sex fuelled violence the narrative structure of the film breaks down. The descent into madness is too rapid as Laing suddenly starts to paint his room and himself. The film becomes disjointed although we see some of the upper floor residents who wish to Balkanise the lower floors and re-organise the place more to their benefit.

It is as the novel was just too big and intricate to just chew off and director Ben Wheatley did not have the budget and resources to do it justice.

The film ends with the words of Mrs Margaret Thatcher former Prime Minister of Britain who did so much to ramp up the divisions between rich and poor in the 1980s.

The most frustrating thing of all about this film is that it starts out with quite a bit of promise. Visually stimulating: interesting and tantalisingly bizarre story and characters - "where will this rabbit hole lead?" you wonder. Well my wife wanted to go to sleep and I was intrigued enough to keep her up on a Sunday night to watch more. As a result I've just been screamed at, I'm apparently spending the night on the sofa and I have specifically registered with IMDb to warn you away from this bubbling pustule of a film. Frankly I'm lucky to be on the sofa - after that decision I'm fortunate not to be face down in a foot-deep bath. It would be more than I deserve.

As I mentioned, after about twenty minutes or so the director seems to give up entirely and simply throw this film into the pinball machine of art-house cliché, and what a score he achieves. In particular; slow motion violence coupled with classical music. I have more than a sneaking suspicion that the director is a big fan of "A Clockwork Orange" and especially the scenes of shockingly base violence coupled with classical music. If your favourite thing in the whole world is the sight of violence in slow motion backed by classical music then this is your lucky day - you are going to be in ecstacy watching this film. Sadly no-one ever seems to have explained to the director that watching violence is like watching porn; thrilling for the first ten minutes, boring for the next five minutes, before settling in to a depressing soul-crushing grind for all time thereafter.

Every character is eminently unlikeable (whichever "side" you pick, both display shocking cruelty to animals, which for me is a massive red line),the story is exceptionally weak - the premise on which society "breaks down" is utterly pathetic. The whole trick of art- house film is to be able to create surreal metaphors which are cleverly interpreted observations on real life; this film can add itself to the list of wannabe art-house, simply scattering meaningless surreal imagery around with apparently no meaning or significance whatsoever. If you ever find yourself talking to the director and he mentions that he is planning on making another film, please do us all a favour and suggest that he find the nearest 40- storey high-rise block and throw himself off of the top of it.

'High Rise' had a lot of promise. An amazing and unique concept, same goes for the source material which is a gripping read and stands out conceptually. Ben Wheatley seemed the right director, as he does have a great style. It had a cast that one really should not go wrong by, the actors all immensely talented. The trailer looked great visually and indicated an intriguing film. Will admit that there were doubts though, as the book is yet another book that is difficult to adapt.

Doubts that sadly proved to be correct on the most part, the reasons have been said frequently here and there is not an awful lot more to add. There are books around that should really have been left alone due to being unadaptable. 'High Rise' is one of them. Other book to film adaptations seen recently that fit under this distinction are 'House of the Spirits' (which would have been much better as a mini-series),'Naked Lunch', 'Cosmopolis' and 'Crash', just to say that despite singling out three David Cronenberg films he is a director generally held in high regard by me. Coming back to talking about 'High Rise' as a film, it is a case of style over substance and is a difficult to rate film and a case of the trailer being much better than the film. Didn't love it, didn't hate it, am very conflicted really.

It starts off so promisingly. The first half hour, or first act, is very intriguing and easy to follow, drawing one right in. Throughout, 'High Rise' looks fantastic. Actually thought it was one of the best-looking films of the year, the production design alone left me in awe and the cinematography perfectly captures the dystopian nightmarish nature of the story. Clint Mansell's score is both haunting and rousing, adding a lot to what is going on and even enhancing it without over-bearing. Wheatley's direction is very uneven, but he does excel in the visual style which is very imaginative.

The cast are also remarkably great, it is amazing that they did so much with material that they are well above of. Luke Evans especially brings a lot of intensity, charisma and poignancy to the one character the film tries to develop and the one character the viewer feels anything for. Tom Hiddleston carries 'High Rise' with a lot of charm and commands the screen with ease. Jeremy Irons has fun with his role, while also being menacing and providing his distinctive gravitas. Elizabeth Moss is also a standout. The rest of the cast are underused but still make the most of what they have, nobody's bad here.

Such a shame though that 'High Rise' goes downhill rapidly too early in a rather sudden and very violent change of tone and the rest of the film becomes very disjointed. It became increasingly dull with no real momentum, and the middle act especially felt over-stretched and padded. Giving the sense of the film being far too long (by about an hour, the middle half hour could easily have been cut out) and the lack of momentum showing an indication of the story overall being too thin structurally. It is not just dull, it becomes confusing and over-complicated to the point of incoherence. While Wheatley excels on the style aspect of 'High Rise', the substance is messy and too detached, that is what was meant by his direction being uneven. Sad because on paper he seemed the right director.

Felt nothing for the characters, other than Evans' Wilder they are sketchy caricatures kept too much at a distance emotionally. Emotionally, 'High Rise' left me cold, felt very little tension or emotion because there was so much frustration at the lack of momentum in the middle act and the chaotic over-complicated confusion that reached breaking point by the rather abrupt and head-scratching ending. Other frustrations are the vapid and self-indulgent script and a quite interesting moral on paper being executed heavy-handedly.

Overall, very hard to rate and the polarisation in the reviews is understandable. Started off so well and with a lot of great things (especially the visuals and cast) but the rest of the film badly underwhelmed. 5/10