View from the Top

Middle of the road comedy about the dreams and experiences of a small-town girl (Gwyneth Paltrow) who longs to be an international flight attendant.

Another forgettable comedy with (supposedly) high-powered talent that seems to be unused. Gwyneth does have a good comedic presence, and she looks good in the skimpy outfits, what with her lean, leggy body and all.

But it's all just light fluffy trek. The movie struggles to even fill its 87 minutes with substance. Basically just girl from small town, longing for high life and glamour, trials and tribulations achieving her goals, and final realization that love and home are really what cranks. My, my, original indeed.

Yes, Gwyneth is OK, not totally sleepwalking through this role. She obviously needs to be stretched artistically, though. The supporting cast don't provide much. Mike Myers' cross eyed instructor provides a few laughs, but seems mostly like an overplayed Saturday Night Live character.

Candice Bergen seems settled into these time-killer comedies, and that is her prerogative. As the grand damme of flight attendants, she does get a couple of humorous lines, and her lispy, stilted, staccato, deliberate vocal delivery is always funny to me.

5/10 because I did laugh a few times. When it's not funny though, it's not much.

It starts on a promising note as one might have expected a 'Legally Blonde' type comedy even though Gwyneth Paltrow does not exactly pull off the dumb blonde act as well as Reese Witherspoon. There's a lot of hilarious comedy as the characters of the hotties: Kelly Preston, Christina Applegate and Paltrow meet and befriend one another. However, things slow down and get boring once the film shifts to the Ruffalo-Paltrow romance track. Among the cast only Christina Applegate stands out as the bitchy jealous friend-turned rival (even though she's played similar roles in 'Married with Children' and 'Friends') while Paltrow does an alright job. Ruffalo plays the typical love-interest and he has done better in 'Just Like Heaven'. Somewhere in the latter half of the film there's a hilarious cat-fight between Applegate and Paltrow which was fun to watch and in the end we get a glimpse of some bloopers (many of which are uninteresting). 'View From The Top' is forgettable. Having seen the trailer, I expected something hilarious but alas!

I really cant believe some of the bad reviews of this movie that I have just been reading on here! The movie is EXACTLY what it promises to be; cute, charming, and yes, a little bit fluffy!! However, it does not take itself too seriously and that makes its flaws forgiveable. I thought it was very entertaining and refreshing, come on people, LIGHTEN UP!!

Here's where being a film critic is tricky. This movie isn't really bad, it's actually worth seeing in some senses. It's less than 90 minutes long, which is a safe bet for a comedy. But it fails to deliver any laughs, it stumbles in its course and has some major flaws. As a film critic, my assignment is to tell the readers my humble opinion of whether a film is worth paying to see. In that regard, no, "View from the Top" is not recommended by me. I didn't even really enjoy it that much. It delivers nothing fresh. But I never checked my watch, I never felt like doing something else with my time. It is a harmless film, a good-natured, sappy one-laugh movie that isn't as clever as it thinks it is but still manages to be sublimely interesting in an odd fashion. It kept me interested, although there may be a difference between interested and entertained.

"View from the Top" has been in what filmmakers call "production hell" for quite some time. It finally was released only to bomb at the box office. I don't blame the public for ignoring it. It's sad to think that the funniest thing about "View from the Top" is that Mike Myers' co-star role as a weirdo airline employee is the highlight of the movie. Myers' cameo may be self-indulgent, but not nearly as much so as Adam Sandler's in "The Hot Chick." In fact, without Mike Myers, I would have given this movie an even lesser rating.

The movie is about airline stewardesses and their way to the top. This sounds like a dull subject because it is. This can hardly be stretched out into a long movie without becoming repetitive. But, in a sense, it isn't clichéd - there are no evil characters bent on the heroine's destruction, there aren't any sexually suggestive pilots hitting on the heroine. It's just a story about a woman trying to make it to the top. It will probably inspire and enthrall the younger crowds but leave older audiences unsure.

The film stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Donna Jensen, a small-town girl who dreams of leaving her country home and moving out into the real world. After reading an inspirational book about a flight stewardess who made her way to the top, Donna leaves home and joins a low-key airline service. Rob Lowe makes a cameo as the pilot but then disappears for the rest of the film. With the ads for the movie, you'd think he's a main character.

Donna meets up with Shelly (Kelly Preston) and another young stewardess played by Christina Applegate. They decide to join Royalty Airlines, but Donna's test results are switched and she ends up being turned down for a job at the airline by Frank Whitney (Mike Myers), who has a funny eye that turns inwards and in order to read he must go through crazy guestures.

This movie has sweet performances and sweet intentions, and comes off the way it wants to - sweet - but I can't bring myself to fully recommend you pay to see it. "View from the Top" isn't a particularly fine movie. It's watchable fluff, and the techniques the film use are not as clichéd as something like "Legally Blonde." But in the end, I realized I had barely laughed at anything. Perhaps clichés aren't always the things to avoid.

2.5/5 stars

It seems that too many people watch this movie with wrong expectations: first of all, it is supposed to be a mindless, silly comedy, and in that sense it does not fail. The very beginning of the film shows it clearly, so adjust your expectations accordingly, you Ms. Paltrow included :) I mean, there is Mike Myers in a role of an absolute idiotic instructor teaching flight attendants how to pronounce "assess" so it does not sound like "asses", and Gwyneth Paltrow in a role that takes full advantage of her good looks and portrays her as an unambitious (dumb?) blonde (in the first third of the film)... so if you are expecting some Kurosawa, or Bergman type depth, you are being delusional.

View from the top does have some shortcomings: first of all, it was being made just as 9/11 happened, and from what I gather, that influenced the story, editing and release quite a bit. Then, there is the strange cameo by Rob Lowe, which leaves an impression that it was meant to be more than just a cameo... but it ended up being a loose end. And there is a strangely inconsistent accent by Gwyneth Paltrow who usually gets it right ("Sliding Doors" comes to mind), so that leads me to believe that there was some serious amount of re-shooting which made for those inconsistencies...

Even with all that, the film comes loaded with good laughs, my favorite being scenes with Mike Myers who just nailed his role (but I understand that "haters gonna hate"), and even Gwyneth's reactions to his lunacy are priceless.

So, if you are expecting a terrific plot that would make Hitchcock jealous, move on, this is not that type of film. But if you are in for some guilty pleasure of silly laughs with some seriously good acting by the main actors (Gwyneth Paltrow, Mike Myers and Christina Applegate were all great), then you have come to the right place.

This film is really not as bad as people are making it to be. There is nothing wrong with using actresses good looks to make a funny film especially when the film has no pretenses at being another "Seventh Seal". If anything, we need more joy and fun in this world, and this film provides plenty of that.

p.s. Watch this film carefully, there are plenty of jokes that would be easy to miss if you are too busy eating popcorn.

p.p.s. BTW, Christina Applegate just proved again what a terrific actress she is! Wow!