Grade: D+
What do you get when you combine two of today’s most over-rated – and untalented – young actors with a stagnant plot? A map to nowhere good, someplace that, until now, had remained unnamed. From now on, we shall refer to this place as Elizabethtown.
Drew Baylor has had a bad day. But not your average bad day. He has caused the shoe company he works for to lose nearly a billion dollars, his former love interest is now giving him the cold shoulder, and he’s left contemplating suicide. His plans to end his life are halted by the death of a man he hardly knew; his father. As he takes off to his late father’s hometown, he must try and find new meaning in his life. As he befriends cunning flight attendant Claire Colburn, he must put his troubles aside and open up to what could be true love.
On his journey down memory lane, he will not only bond with his estranged family, but come to know the man he thought he once called “Dad”.
Orlando Bloom displays his obvious acting limitations in a role that, had it been taken on by an actor with any talent, could have saved the movie. Kirsten Dunst, on the other hand stakes a claim for the year’s most obnoxious character. Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon have both settled for smaller parts in the movie, perhaps expecting the flop.
Ashton Kutcher and Jane Fonda had been tied to the project, but both dropped during early stages of production. Kutcher was allegedly fired for lack of chemistry with Dunst, as well as a disappointing **ahem** performance, while Fonda blamed conflicting schedules for handing the part over to Sarandon.
Cameron Crowe seems to have lost whatever he had going on a few years ago, when he charmed audiences with Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. While some of his other flicks still remain etched in movie-goers’ minds, his latest attempt will most probably be regarded as just another pointless movie to most. But what was it that his other movies had that this one doesn’t? Oh yeah, I remember now: Talented actors.
Prepubescent teenage girls will flood movie theatres gushing over Bloom, but even they could find themselves laughing at the multiple storylines that develop but never actually fully… bloom. Other movie-goers might be tempted to catch a glimpse of what might or might not be Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst’s Mr and Mrs Smith. Rumor has it that the cuddling and flat-out making out didn’t end until way after the cameras had stopped rolling, with Dunst blmaed for nabbing Bloom away from Kate Bosworth.
Instead of going to see this movie, you might want to consider investing thse precious minutes in doing something somewhat more fun, such as cutting your toenails or plucking your eyebrows, because, let’s face it, those are two hours of your life that you’ll never get back.
