À la dérive

It's another Madonna film: does anyone really need to know more?

The only thing worse than Madonna trying to be funny is Madonna trying to be serious.

The only thing worse than being trapped on a desert island with Madonna is being trapped on a desert island with Madonna and a film crew.

In 2002, the only thing worse than Madonna in SWEPT AWAY was Robin Williams in DEATH TO SMOOCHY.

The only thing worse than watching Madonna in any movie is trying to come up with new ways of saying she can't act.

I watched Swept Away having little else to do, and part of me wished I had read a magazine or an opera DVD instead. Swept Away has few, if any at all, redeeming qualities at all, and there were times where I wished I could turn off the television but reminded myself that is not a fair way to judge a movie.

Guy Ritchie's direction for starters is very unimaginative, and the camera work and editing don't have any real charm to them, the camera work is not amateurish as such but shows nothing out of the ordinary, and the editing could've been smoother at times.

The script is very hackneyed, the comedic elements are forced and the romantic elements sappy. Also it has the feel of a bad 70s TV drama. The concept has been done to death but that wasn't necessarily a turn off, but the pace is turgid and the story itself doesn't have any interest at all.

Likewise with the characters. They don't feel like characters or real people at all, just overdone caricatures. Jeanne Tripplehorn gets the worst of it, and her overdone performance suffers from it. Madonna only so far has impressed me in Evita, but her performance here is lifeless and disengaged here.

Only two things have any real spark. One is the striking scenery and the other is the earthy charm of Adrianno Giannini. However these two are not enough to salvage the movie from being an insipid bore. All in all, not recommended. 1/10 Bethany Cox

This is perhaps the worst movie I've ever seen, and I've seen Gigli. It is, however, unintentionally hilarious and as such is worth viewing with friends and some drinks while making jokes all the while- ala Mystery Science Theater.

At our party we made a game of it by taking a drink when certain things happened. Shot of Madonna's biceps? Everybody drink!

If you decide to do this and you want to get really hammered, try taking a drink every time Madonna says something in her fake British accent. You'll be drunk in no time and then - BONUS! - the movie won't seem as horrific as it really is.

I really wanted to like this movie because the critics have been unkind

to it (to say the least)... but it was terrible. Really terrible. Badly

acted, a witless script, cack handed direction... Watching this film was

like watching a car crash- you want to look away but you keep staring

because you want to see how messy it's going to get. Well, the car is

wrecked and there are no survivors. On the plus side, the cinematography

was nice, made me want to go on holiday, if only to cleanse myself from

this unholy

and forget this. Completely. If you really need to see Madonna act, rent "Body of Evidence", at least Willem Defoe is in that one.

In this film, while the sets are beautiful, you may want to mute the dialog. You won't miss anything. Bruce Greenwood is wasted, Jeanne Tripplehorn is a prop, and Madonna is so awful, it becomes amusing. Why they had to butcher the original film into this mess, I will never know; guess they thought it was "bankable". Madonna, as an actress, certainly is NOT.

If you rent the original film from 1979, though, you will enjoy it, and the actors in it can actually act. 1/10.