Unlike some people I didn't see anything mindblowing in the movie... I figured that much from the first minute. Guess who did the score? Hans Zimmer. How can you tell? When the fucking Inception tune is horning. What further could you do to alienate me right away? Adjust the colors so that some of the people onscreen have orange skin!?
Well, the good thing is that it isn't riding too hard on the white guilt but still, even the "nice" slave-masters are inheretly immoral. Can't say much about the adaptation as I'm not familiar with the source material but we don't really get much from Solomon's character except for the odd nod that he is a superior slave or at least entitled given his background (as wrong as this sounds)... There was the lack of weight of the 12 years as we can't keep track of time except for the nature changing and but it's still rather episodic.
The acting is one of the better parts although the movie would have benefited from a lesser known cast. Brad Pitt was totally out of place (he was the Producer w/e) and for example Danno's little song was more a bad joke than anything thanks to his general persona.
Despite some good scenes I just never really got into it so the whole affair felt longer than it should have been. This is basicly my Lincoln of 2013.