Depp! Jolie!! Venice!!!
Snore.
“The Tourist” pairs two of Hollywood’s most attractive stars – Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp – only to prove chemistry remains impossible to predict.
Don’t forget to blame director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (“The Lives of Others”) making an inauspicious American film debut. Depp and Jolie may never be a cinematic dream team, but surely a confident director could coax more life out of them.
You’ll find more animated performances by flipping the pages of US Weekly in rapid fashion.
“The Tourist” casts Jolie as Elise, a mystery woman being trailed by several men as the film opens. She’s been romantically linked to a thief who pilfered millions from a Russian baddie, and the men following Elise hope she can lead them to him and his bounty.
Meanwhile, Depp plays a schlubby math teacher named Frank traveling solo across Europe. Elise picks up Frank on a train headed to Venice, hoping he can help her elude her stalkers. Frank is roughly the same height and build as her ex-beau.
Elise gives little concern to what might happen to Frank, apparently.
Frank, as lonely a soul as you’ll find, falls hard for Elise and for her faux flirtations. It’s hard to blame her. “The Tourist” treats Jolie like a Vogue cover model, shooting her curves and pouty lips with a reverence bordering on creepy.
Does anyone remember she has an Oscar on his mantle?
But Elise finds herself drawn to Frank even though he smokes electronic cigarettes and has all the charisma of, well, a math teacher.
A smart script might have made Frank more appealing, a regular Joe whose kind and wounded heart draws Elise in. But the five scribes behind “The Tourist” can’t muster that level of storytelling. Instead, the narrative trudges on, relying on a spy movie score and the gorgeous scenery to keep us riveted.
At times, it works. Who could resist sweeping shots of Venice’s waterways?
The romantic sparks intended to shower across the screen never happen, and the chase sequences are both mercifully modest and weakly choreographed. And the film’s ending offers up an infuriating twist that should shake free anyone who had given the film a chance up until that point.
Movie stars can make mediocre movies shine. But Depp and Jolie’s considerable star power only makes “The Tourist” a bigger frustration than merely another soppy spy lark.
(Photo: Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie cut up a rug during “The Tourist,” a new spy romance. Columbia Pictures)
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll probably check this out this week, as there’s not a lot else out (that I haven’t already seen.) Not overly excited about the prospect though!
Lately Depp looks like a younger Keith Richards wearing Diane Keaton’s suits. It’s just not sexy anymore. Add in Angelina’s stark frame and horrible grasp of accents, I will be checking the “no” box.
“You’ll find more animated performances by flipping the pages of US Weekly in rapid fashion.” That line made me LAUGH out loud.
Anyways, I live 40 min outside of Venice, so i dont need to see that bull-expletive on screen.
Being funny in print (or on the web) is brutally hard, Nat. thanks for the compliment. And I’m jealous of where you call home!