I have never rated any movie below a 5 on this site, but there is always a first time. I never thought it would be a movie starring one of the greatest actors of our time, and one of the most beautiful actresses around. It also starred some of my other favorites like Paul Bettany, Rufus Sewell, and Timothy Dalton. Sadly, we don't see enough of Sewell and Dalton.
We decided to see this movie even though the critics gave it very poor reviews, trusting instead the 81% favorable user ratings on another site. I never thought in my wildest dreams that a movie with the credentials of this one might be bad....but, it was. Boring, in fact. Those 81% must be Angelina fans happy to be seeing her in anything or Depp lovers, even.
By now you probably know the storyline about a beautiful, mysterious woman, (Jolie), who becomes involved with some mysterious goings on starting in Paris and moving on to Venice. She meets a man (Depp) on a train (an old plot ploy) and takes him to her hotel in Venice where she kisses him and then promptly leaves him to sleep on the couch. Then the real action starts..a gangster is after a man he think is some one who stole from him, instead finding a mild mannered math teacher, simply a tourist. The scenery in Venice is gorgeous and helps make up for some plot holes. The story is so muddled that the scenery doesn't help enough.
Hmmmm....at this point I thought, OK, between the scenery of Venice and Jolie's beautiful dress in the opening scenes, this movie is trying to revive the international caper with gorgeous clothes, romance, and witty dialog genre that "To Catch a Thief" did so well in the 1950's, or even "Charade". If that is what it was trying to be, it missed it's mark! Depp can't hold a candle to Cary Grant's performances (in both movies) and Jolie is no Grace Kelly, even though she tries very hard to be the next ice queen...and never to Audrey Hepburn, a one of a kind actress who will never be matched, in style or wit.
Nothing about this film worked well. The cinematography was just OK, the writing was terrible, and the direction was missing. In one scene what was supposed to be a long, slow romantic approach to each other was interrupted by a song that was far from romantic. In another, Depp's attempts at humor fall flat. The few times Jolie spoke, I wasn't sure what kind of accent she was trying to do, only figuring out through other sources what nationality she was supposed to be.
Think what you will of Angelina, but I don't see her as a serious actress. She is just beautiful, and extremely frail looking in this role, not sexy at all. I love Depp but he has rarely gone for the romantic leading man role. He should stick to what he does so well, the quirky, character driven roles.
I read somewhere that this was supposed to be a comedy. Maybe in Neverland! What was the Foreign Press thinking when they were giving nominations to this movie in the field of musical and/or comedy? And, for what...? They missed their mark, too!
We decided to see this movie even though the critics gave it very poor reviews, trusting instead the 81% favorable user ratings on another site. I never thought in my wildest dreams that a movie with the credentials of this one might be bad....but, it was. Boring, in fact. Those 81% must be Angelina fans happy to be seeing her in anything or Depp lovers, even.
By now you probably know the storyline about a beautiful, mysterious woman, (Jolie), who becomes involved with some mysterious goings on starting in Paris and moving on to Venice. She meets a man (Depp) on a train (an old plot ploy) and takes him to her hotel in Venice where she kisses him and then promptly leaves him to sleep on the couch. Then the real action starts..a gangster is after a man he think is some one who stole from him, instead finding a mild mannered math teacher, simply a tourist. The scenery in Venice is gorgeous and helps make up for some plot holes. The story is so muddled that the scenery doesn't help enough.
Hmmmm....at this point I thought, OK, between the scenery of Venice and Jolie's beautiful dress in the opening scenes, this movie is trying to revive the international caper with gorgeous clothes, romance, and witty dialog genre that "To Catch a Thief" did so well in the 1950's, or even "Charade". If that is what it was trying to be, it missed it's mark! Depp can't hold a candle to Cary Grant's performances (in both movies) and Jolie is no Grace Kelly, even though she tries very hard to be the next ice queen...and never to Audrey Hepburn, a one of a kind actress who will never be matched, in style or wit.
Nothing about this film worked well. The cinematography was just OK, the writing was terrible, and the direction was missing. In one scene what was supposed to be a long, slow romantic approach to each other was interrupted by a song that was far from romantic. In another, Depp's attempts at humor fall flat. The few times Jolie spoke, I wasn't sure what kind of accent she was trying to do, only figuring out through other sources what nationality she was supposed to be.
Think what you will of Angelina, but I don't see her as a serious actress. She is just beautiful, and extremely frail looking in this role, not sexy at all. I love Depp but he has rarely gone for the romantic leading man role. He should stick to what he does so well, the quirky, character driven roles.
I read somewhere that this was supposed to be a comedy. Maybe in Neverland! What was the Foreign Press thinking when they were giving nominations to this movie in the field of musical and/or comedy? And, for what...? They missed their mark, too!