Starring: Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp
Released: December 2010
This is an odd one. The film is clearly suited for Angelina, showing a desirable love struck women on the mission to find her criminal partner, coming across all sorts of danger. But for Johnny, it's almost as if the role's a promotional part to hype up The Rum Diary and Pirates of the Caribbean 4. That's not to say he's bad; it's just a curious choice of film for such an actor who likes the quirky characters - Not a maths teachers who falls in love with a woman everyone else wants.
As you can probably tell from the last sentence, this film is completely predictable. I mean, stupidly predictable. It comes across as cool, luxurious and dangerous, but really we guess the plot twist from about half an hour in and are bored of the 'lets not talk to each other and allow the silence to do the talking' theme running through this couple. The jokes are repeated too much and the lifestyle becomes more of a nuisance than anything else.
It is a beautiful film though. Jolie is just magnificent to look at (from a straight, female perspective - You men must be drooling all over the place) and Johnny Depp is absolutely stunning. He's groomed about as much as he can be naturally, which (although not as sexy as Captain Jack), is pretty easy on the eyes. Having him as my teacher would have got me nowhere in Maths, not that I did anyway. Moving on... And the choice of setting in Venice works perfectly with the aura this film tries so hard to carry.
The narrative is effectively entertaining for a mindless couple of hours. If you're willing to go in with a completely receptive frame of mind then there's no harm done. But going in expecting a performance of a life time with a real twist to the story will disappoint the hell out of you. I guess it's a play on a rom-com. They meet, there's a connection, there's a gangster that tries to kill them, there's a kiss - Done.
The film is just so typical, that's the best way I can describe it. Even the cinematography doesn't provide the slightest possibility of excitement. You can sit and watch this film, come out and completely forget about it. There's no impact apart from the fact it's got two of the biggest stars in Hollywood starring in a mundane action/rom-com/gangster tale. Their relationship isn't desirable because it hasn't been set up right in the narrative. The situation that occurs is explained so bluntly that the mystery the characters have in their personalities becomes a bit ridiculous to watch. The very end shows the potential of a good story, where Angelina and Johnny's true colours are shown in an actual, real relationship. It's a shame the story got cut off then. All in all, it's pointless, to be honest.
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Hey, it's funny that Depp is talking about repeating a joke and how annoying it is...
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