sddavis63

My wife wanted to watch this. It's a romance. It's not really my genre of choice, but ... well ... if a romance is done well it can be an enjoyable enough experience, but to be honest I went into this with low expectations - based on the fact that the plot synopsis sounded so cliché. A young American woman with a great job waiting for her back in New York goes to study at Oxford for a year and falls in love, forcing her to make a choice about her future. It just sounded kind of standard to me. But, maybe this would have what it takes to make a romance worth watching - charm, humour, likeable characters you can root for and feel a connection with. Sorry. Nope. I found no charm, no wit and I really didn't care much for any of the characters. When the movie tried to be charming it was irritating; when it tried to be funny it was painfully dry; when it tried to draw you into the various characters' lives and feelings there was just nothing to connect with. There really was no obvious "chemistry" (whatever that mysterious thing is) between Sofia Carson and Corey Mylchreest, which meant the relationship between Anna and Jamie came across as unrealistic to say the least. Essentially the entire story seemed - to use a good British term - bloody forced from beginning to end. Everybody - from the cast to the director to the writers - just seemed to be trying too hard to make me like this. They failed. They bloody failed. The pacing was off; the story was contrived. They bloody well failed.

I'm trying hard to think of something good I can say about the experience of watching this. OK. When Anna first arrives at Oxford and she's walking through the campus there's some nifty camera work that gives a really awe-inspiring glance at some of the old buildings. But can that save this in any way? Not really. I hate extremes. I hate rating movies with either a "1" or a "10." But if the best I can say about a movie is that I liked a 30 second scene where some old buildings were shown? Well, this gets a 1/10.

I have no criticisms of Russell Crowe's performance in this movie. As Roy Freeman, he played a former police detective suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, who gets drawn into taking a fresh look at a murder case he was involved in ten years before after being contacted by an advocacy group who believe that the convicted killer is innocent.

To give credit to the movie, I watched it through to the end because I really was intrigued to discover who the killer was. I also didn't see the twist coming when the killer was revealed. That gains a couple of points from me, but overall I wasn't really impressed.

The movie is just covered with so much melodrama that it comes across as a big screen soap opera. Everyone seems to be a suspect and none of the characters are particularly likable. I just didn't find myself caring much about any of them. Beyond Crowe, I found the performances lacking. Karen Gillan, who's the female lead, seemed passionless for the most part. I also wondered how Freeman was possibly able to live on his own, with his need for notes, names and reminders written on masking tape stuck everywhere in his home.

Watch it through by all means for the big reveal of the killer. But it takes a while to get there. The paving isn't great, so don't go into this with big expectations. (3/10)

On the surface this is a pretty simple and standard sci-fi type of movie about an alien invasion of earth - even stereotypical, since it uses the well worn technique of having the aliens frozen in ice and thawing out to wreak havoc on humanity. From that perspective, the movie isn't anything special. Standard effects, decent enough (but not great in my opinion) CGI aliens, performances that were all right but often overshadowed by the action. But there were a couple of things that made this a little more noteworthy.

First was the time travel angle. It's called "The Tomorrow War" because it's abut a war that hasn't broken out yet. It's set 28 years into the future, when this invasion has begun and humanity is losing and on the verge of being wiped out. Somehow, they've managed to develop some form of time travel and they go back 28 years to recruit soldiers, hoping that those soldiers will be motivated by the need to save their children and grandchildren from this fate. That premise was interesting enough. The movie revolves around Dan Forester, and Iraq veteran who's become a biology teacher and who's "drafted" to go into the future for a tour of duty, leaving his wife and child behind. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that when he arrives in the future and meets his commander, it comes as a surprise to him. The time travel angle gave a fresh feel to what could have been a well-worn storyline. This is also a story about redemption and second chances and the healing of old wounds leading to reconciliations. That human element also provided a bit of freshness to the story.

I wouldn't say that I found this to be a great sci-fi adventure, and like almost any sci-fi time travel adventure it has plot holes galore, but I appreciated the effort to take such a well worn plot and freshen it up enough to make it both entertaining and interesting. (6/10)