Friday, January 14, 2011

The Tourist



The signs that The Tourist wouldn't turn out good is there in the poster. The pairing of 2 of the current hollywood's top actors now are curious at best, mismatched at worst: Johnny Depp who's normally doing wacky roles and Angelina Jolie who's usually into more serious roles. But the pairing is not what causes the film to fail. In fact, Depp does well in a welcome change as an ordinary joe stuck in an extraordinary situation and Jolie does her usual unattainable beauty role, although she does look old here. However, the worst failings of The Tourist is that its script (credited to 2 oscar winners) is simply too by the book and predictable. Even worse is as a travelogue film that shoots in Venice, the scenery aren't good enough to compensate. This seems to be a hollywood reel for director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who previously directed the clinically efficient but cold The Lives of Others (which won best foreign film oscar). But sadly, the monotony of the film doesn't make it a good reel either.If you want to see a better film about an american stuck in Italy, watch The American. - 2.5/5

Get Him To The Greek



A hilarious comedy that succeeds because of how many unexpected pleasant surprises are there in store. Who'd have guessed that Russell Brand is capable of showing some humanity while playing (or just being a variant of himself) an obnoxious rocker? Who'd have guessed that Jonah Hill is capable of doing a straight man considering that many of his roles so far only consist of being borderline annoying friends in Judd Apatow movies? Who'd have guessed Sean "P. Diddy" Combs could be so funny? Even a normally serious actress Rose Byrne gets to go against type to hilarious results.

Writer/director Nicholas Stoller returns in this follow up to his previous Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But the confused emotions that hamper FSM doesn't happen here, which makes this comedy gold another great outing from Judd Apatow factory. - 3.5/5