Love in the Great Smoky Mountains: A National Park Romance

I was disappointed with this movie. The concept was good, but the execution wasn't. I've seen Ariel in other movies and she has had great chemistry with other male leads, but in this film there was nothing, not even a fizzle. It was disappointing because I've seen her in the other films and really liked her. She was okay in this film, but without the chemistry it just fell flat.

The scenery was lovely, but I don't watch hallmark movies because of the scenery. It's just a nice bonus if the setting adds to the movie. The story of trying to find this magnificent stone was okay, but finding it was way too easy. It was hard to believe that it hadn't been found already.

I watched this with my wife, and we loved the scenery. We honeymooned in the Smokes many years ago, and have been back since, and loved those mountains and waterfalls.

Sadly, this movie was poorly written, poorly acted, and poorly set up in so many of its actions that we very nearly turned off the movie several times -- but the Smokies kept us watching.

The way the female lead "hiked" in those mountains was dangerous and foolhardy, and the "in cave" portion of the final part was sooooo non-professionally-done for a PhD "archaeologist" that it completely broke the scene.

We didn't come to care about the leads, didn't "feel" any chemistry between them -- see "poorly acted" above -- and she accepted him waaaaay too quickly and easily.

All in all, I think the 4 stars might be an overly positive rating. (sigh) This was an exceptionally poor movie -- not quite terrible (mostly because of the great scenery, actually in the Smokies!) -- but definitely below average.

We still love the Smokies.

Oh, I love the main actress... She has been exceptional in her previous Hallmark movies I've seen, but there is a massive lack of cohesion between any of the characters in this movie. Although I appreciate all of the background they give regarding the Indians, it seems the unnatural conversations are terribly memorized and too slow for the flow of communication. This is quite disappointing because the previews of this movie were so cute.

I am so happy to see that this film was actually made in the Smoky mountains. I was expecting another Canada location but much to my surprise, there are four filming locations in the United States.

We either love or at least enjoy most Hallmark movies. We've watched some of them over and over again. Not this one...

The dialogue and the acting seemed so forced with this one, that we couldn't get through it. We tried. We gave it at least an hour. But we were suffering. The plot is decent. It's something about the casting and the actors. The dialogue seems forced. So many others could have carried this movie so much better. There seemed to be little chemistry. It's not the actors themselves. They'd all do better in different roles.

At the time of this review, 26 people had rated it, with ratings obviously higher than the one the four of us who were watching it came up with.

This is really difficult to watch.

The whole thing has this amateurish feel about it.

The actors are various degrees of bad. They literally just recite lines but are not believable in their roles. I couldn't believe they were happy or mad or excited. It was obvious throughout that they were just actors badly cast in some roles.

The plot is based on a potentially good idea but the final result is like "color by numbers": you understand the idea but it looks unnatural. There is no spark, no heart, no creativity.

It works as background noise, if you need to work but can't allocate too much attention to the TV and, for some reason, you don't want to listen to music. Otherwise don't waste your time.