Sun, Sand & Romance

The setting in Mexico was beautiful, loved looking at the beach scenery. Unfortunately, there was no chemistry between the main female and either man. It was good background noise while I was working.

I am a Hallmark movie fan. 80% of the time, I think they do a great a job with mindless, fun, sweet movies. But the casting is all. This one felt so awkward and wooden. The leads, ( all of them), had zero chemistry. The men were really bad in this one. This had some odd casting. Who thought the two lead actors were good for a romance movie? Even the small parts were not good. It felt like someone cast their friends for a free trip to Mexico. Paul Campbell seemed like he was reading lines to a wall. He had no charisma or feeling to his part. The actress, Tricia Helfer was not bad. I think she had to work with stiff dialogue and actors so that did not help. Also I kept thinking why she did not have the spark she has in the Netflix series, "Shut Eye" until I looked her up. I thought she was KaDee Strickland! These two look like twins. The story was beyond predictable, like a dime store romance. I do realize this is what Hallmark makes. As I said, many times I find them cute and fun. This one was rather painful to watch. The end felt rushed and wrapped up in a neat little bow. I can forgive many things, but 100% lack of any chemistry between the leads, is one thing you cannot fake. It felt like they did not even actually like each other. There was not even a friend vibe.

As a regular viewer of Hallmark movies, and someone clearly familiar with their style, patterns, and expected formulae, this movie had me interested and ready to enjoy. Sadly, the actors were so wooden in their performances, the movie turned into a major letdown. Credit, first, to the beautiful setting ..RIviera Maya is hard to beat..the beautiful foliage, blue-green waters, colorful resort all served to bring a romantic anticipation to the movie. However..despite Tricia Helfer's stunning beauty and skillful, energetic acting, she was cast alongside Paul Campbell, whose face never changes expression..whose acting is so wooden..that one wondered if he even read the description of his character. He was cast as the loving, romantic alternative choice Helfer makes..when realizing her current partner is lacking in commitment to their relationship. But Campbell has no expression on his face, often staring straight ahead as though he is reading his lines from a cue card, and he exudes absolutely no romantic vibes at all. Even his smiles are forced and constricted. The casting of this actor as a romantic leading man was a poor decision..No one would believe that the intelligent, beautiful, emotional leading lady would choose him over anyone..This film would have been a big success had the producers found a leading man with a more varied range of facial expressions..Sorry..a good movie gone bad because of Campbell's sheer inability to convey emotion and romance.

One of my favorites! I absolutely love Paul Campbell! You can't go wrong with anything he is in! I thought this movie was good! The acting was not bad as some have said! Paul is a wonderful actor and so were the other actors in this! I don't understand how anyone did not enjoy this movie or many of the other Halmark movies that have bad reviews. I've reviewed a few as being bad but this movie was not one of them!

The plot and soundtrack are ok and the scenery is lovely. However the lead characters just don't look the same age like they're supposed to. I get that they live very different lives now so it's sort of understandable at a stretch but I think the casting team could have done a better job to really make the movie believable. Everything else was fine for this style of movie so I would rewatch.