The Tourist
This had to be...one of the dumbest movies I've seen in a long time. I'm not entirely sure what vibe the film makers were going for, but they ended up with something along the lines of an "Old Hollywood" parody mixed with a light action/romantic comedy flick. Or something like that. The tone itself didn't completely ruin the movie, it more served as an annoyance. The "elegant" shots seemed out of place and the film's score was just over-the-top with its whimsical airy peaks and valleys. Ugh. But again, that's not entirely what brought the movie down. The plot. That killed it for me. It just seemed ridiculous and wholly unbelievable. (As a quick reminder: movies- as they are entertainment- do NOT need to mimic reality. But they do have to adhere to some sense of reality for the realm (so to speak) or setting of the movie. For instance, in Jurassic Park, dinosaurs were normal. In real life... as far as I know.. dinosaurs don't exist... no stretch in the realm of the movie Jurassic Park to have dinosaurs. Now dinosaurs that breathed fire or shot laser beams out of their eyes, yeah, not in the realm of the movie and had Jurassic Park included that I'd be thinking that that was just plain unbelievable. You have to establish a baseline of reality for that plot and try not to stray too far. In the case of the Tourist, I think they went a little... to a lot... over the line). It is clear that the film makers- that'd be Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (holy shit, what a name) and crew- were aiming for a good old fashioned twisty turny fun action romantic adventure... cool, but the devil is in the execution of said twists and turns. Most of the plot turns just made my eyes roll. "Seriously?" was the common mental refrain. I know this isn't the most eloquent way of putting it, but again, the movie was just. plain. dumb. But at least it wasn't boring. That would have really sucked. It was an entertaining enough way to pass twoish hours. Just wish more thought would have been placed on subtler and more realistic twists.
But hey, at least the movie had star power! Hell yeah Paul Bettany! Iron Man's computer came to life and works for Scotland Yard. Big ups there. Actually Paul Bettany gave a pretty darn good effort here. Or at least his part was written in a way that allowed him to put in a good effort. Nice play on an obsessive, kind of slimey Scotland Yard Financial Crimes investigator. Nice work, Jarvis. Yeah, I know the real star power in the film is Timothy Dalton. Just kidding. I mean he's in it and all but not in a major role. Of course the buzz on this one (when it was being made and leading up to its release... the flick had a strange lack of buzz after release...maybe because it just wasn't that great) had to do with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Ok, well, not the mind melting mix of talent some were hoping for. For me? Well, the only "Angelina Jolie" movie I had seen prior to this was Kung Fu Panda. She was pretty good in terms of voice talent. But she seems like she's pretty talented. So going in I was excited to being seeing my first true Jolie film. Leaving I was disappointed that they went with the Jolie-bot 2000 rather than the flesh and blood version of Angie. Or at least that's how her performance came off. Cold, mechanical, damn-near emotion-less. Is that what the von Donnersmarck was shooting for? She can act right? Right? Why this then? I can only imagine this is what the director was gunning for. I'd call it a misstep.
So that leaves Depp. Big Depp fan over here. Loved him in a bunch of his movies: Finding Neverland, Edward Scissorhands, Chocolat, Public Enemies, the first Pirates, Blow, Fear and Loathing, Donnie Brasco, and so forth. (Of course I hated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). So this was a pretty big disappointment again. I don't really blame him. He didn't seem to be going through the motions or anything. He seemed invested in the movie and it was a pretty good performance... of a kind of cruddy script. His character was annoying. His accent was annoying (at first I thought- what the hell is Johnny doing- is he going to bring shades of Captain Jack into every role now... by the end of the movie it makes sense... I mean what he was going for... why he was going for it too... by why he had to go for it... that was dumb). His performance was game. What else can you say. He has a certain big star appeal and a whole shitload of charm. It's really hard not to like his performances. But every once and again something like the Tourist or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Alice in Wonderland or Pirates sequels (yes, I'm planning on seeing Pirates 4... no I don't think it'll be very good... yes I think Johnny Depp is doing backstrokes in his money-filled pool on his private island) pops up just to remind me of how awesome Depp is in awesome movies. I'm sure he can single handedly carry a movie, but not this one. Sadly.
In the end, I think it would have been better as a somewhat bizzaro version of Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck as Frank and Audrey Hepburn as Elise. And.. why not... Eddie Albert as Bettany's Inspector Acheson... annnnnnd hmmmm Mickey Rooney as Dalton's Chief Inspector Jones. Dead. Lock. Hit. But it never happened. What did happen was a less-than-great flick... that at its best was "not so boring"... yeah, not so good.
Grade: C
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