Review of Winter's Tale (2014) by Joe V — 21 Feb 2014

I went into this knowing that I would inevitably be disappointed as per the reviews I had already seen on RT. I should refrain from looking at reviews because, really, my opinion has already been swayed and my movie mind is not a blank slate as it should be if a true review is to be had. I don't know much about critiquing movies so far but I assume this is the case.

After seeing the trailers I instantly thought of Cloud Atlas because of the flashbacks across time. That combined with the fact that I'm a sucker for some good CGI compelled me to see it but all I got was sappy and more sappy.

The one shining star (no pun intended) in this little piece of eye candy is Jessica Brown-Findlay. I loved her in Downton Abbey and was expecting a great performance out of her, which I got. Not only is she stunningly beautiful but she has that smokey, almost gravely voice, that just sucks you in and makes her all the more beautiful. it was a delight to watch her act and most of the movie fell in her wake.

Colin Farrel is, for the most part always a great actor, but he didn't have much to work with here as did Findlay. His character lacked the depth I was expecting but this is most likely because we know so little about him. An orphan thief raised by a demon who eventually develops amnesia. Ok, definitely appealing to people like me and with a movie this long I thought I would see more development. We really only get details rather than actually seeing anything brought to life which is essential to character development in a movie. I wanted to see more of his thief life or what is was like to be raised by a demon but got none.

Oh, his hair, I forgotten to mention his hair. Such a good choice for this movie; he looks amazing with it cut like that.

Instead it was centered on Farrel and Findlay exchanging googly eyes in scene after scene accompanied by that "omg my soul mate!" movie music that eventually just made me sick. This plus the guardian angel winged horse...Yeah, you can draw your own conclusions.

Russel Crowe with his twitching cheeks and demon insecurity was great as was Will Smith as satan but, again, there just wasn't much there. Jennifer Connelly was beautiful as always. I fell in love with her after watching Dark City.

This movie just seemed like it was made for people who are more into how pretty a movie is rather than wanting or needing a good plot and character development.

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