| Stunning |
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| written by dadohead |
February 10, 2005 - 7:13 PM PST |
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2 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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| I don't normally do reviews, but...wow! I don't think this film could have been more stilted: I've seen early silents with subtler acting. EVERYTHING is telegraphed to the audience, sometimes in triplicate, and it's hard to know if this stellar group of actors were given over to their worst impulses en masse, or if the director demanded these performances. In any event, the sum total of the wretched and preposterously arch dialog, inane plot(s), bad direction, and ham-fisted editing total something that is truly remarkable in it's badness (but, unfortunately not good bad, like say, "Showgirls"). I wanted to see it because I didn't believe it could be all that bad. I was wrong: it was worse. A colossal waste of time. |
| Crap Actually |
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| written by JValladares1 |
August 28, 2004 - 11:41 AM PDT |
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6 out of 8 members found this review helpful
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| I am compelled by my hatred for this film to review it. If you are looking for romance, look elsewhere. This movie does not tell the story of more than a dozen people with new romances as much as it merely shows you their big scenes. There can be no interest in these relationships because we never get a chance to become interested in the characters. It was like a highlights reel of romantic highpoints from other films, and it suffers from the "wouldn't it be cool" syndrome where things that wouldn't happen certianly will for the cheap emotional response. There are many impressive actors in this film, none of their skills utilized. The only redeeming qualities to this film were two songs in the soundtrack: The Beach Boys' God only Knows and Otis Redding's White Christmas, and even those were drowned in a sea of Brit pop sess. To be fair, I am not a fan of light modern romance films but regardless I assure you there is nothing to see here, not an ounce of "so bad it's good" either. Makes Sleepless in Seattle look like Dark Passage. You've been warned. |
| Crap Actually |
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| written by Krow |
June 23, 2004 - 2:38 PM PDT |
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5 out of 6 members found this review helpful
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| If all the cows in Vermont were taken hostage, then milked feverishly for a year you might be able to make enough cheese to equal this annoying movie. Hardly a single cliché` was left unsaid, hardly a single plot line was left unused, hardly a single heart string was left untugged. An excellent cast was thrown to the dogs, victims of a pedestrian script and a flurry of forced cameos. Left to their own devices they mugged and struggled on bravely. I'm sure more than a few of them had serious talks with their agents post-production. All that seemed genuine were the looks of embarrassment. At times it was just so plain awful that I began to think it was a parody. Cruelly that fleeting hope was dashed time and again as the banal score and pallid acting crammed its way onto the screen like some home movie gone terribly wrong. I remember the reviews... "by the end the audience stood and cheered". Now I know why... it was finally over. |
| Maddenly, Simply Awful |
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| written by Basil918 |
June 6, 2004 - 8:05 AM PDT |
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2 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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| What could have possessed these actors to appear in this film? Shot in a fragmented style suggesting attention deficit disorder, "Love Actually" is neither romantic or comedic. Indeed, when its characters aren't behaving with complete arbitrariness, they're down-right perverse: consider Liam Neeson urging his son to pursue the girl of his dreams -- as though he's 21 instead of 10 -- while they both decide to "get on with their lives" followiing the death of their wife and mother a couple of weeks earlier. (Spouses and parents as replacement parts...) When the story stretches for satire, it's apparent that the filmmakers don't have any idea what they're sending up: what are we to make of the portrait of lusty Wisconsin? Hugh Grant, as prime minister, is his usual likeable self; though clueless to the point where he would have lost the Falklands War, never mind WWII. (Churchill, who enjoyed a long romantic marriage, displayed immeasurely more wit, and without the benefit of screen writers.) A theme does emerge: most of the "romance" involves wildly out of whack power relations: bosses and employees, people unable to speak or understand the beloved's language; a presumptive doomed romantic who actually comes off as something of a stalker. The film has a kind of bright hard-shellac shine to it; it's not unpleasing to watch. But finally, it's insipid and horribly sentimental -- all sticky stylized substitutions for love, rather than the muck, satisfactions, and joy of the real thing. For romantic comedies, try "Madly, Truly, Deeply" (with Alan Rickman much better used), or "The Philadelphia Story," or "My Girl Friday" or any of the 1930s screwball comedies where the men and women engage one another's brains along with their eyes and even the most outlandish comic buffonery evokes a world of flawed and needy humans rather than the glittering automatons of the moment. |
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