Comment

Aug 30, 2009Michael rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
Didn't like it. Holy smokes - 94 people are lined up on OPL waiting their turn to see this Woody Allen UNfunny movie... probably not so much because of Woody, but more because it stars the enigmatic bad boy of English films Colin Farrell and the usually engaging Ewan Mcgregor. Add for good measure the excellent British character actor and oft-Academy award nominated Tom Wilkinson and... Hey, wait a second... boy, are they going to be ticked off for thinking this was a movie DVD worth waiting for! Cassandra's Dream is a throw-away name given a sail-boat two working class brothers, Terry (Farrell) and Ian (McGregor) over-extend themselves to buy. The movie is just as throw-away, despite Allen's over-efficient attempt at trying to make it meaningful. I found the script impossible to like... wordy like a stage-play beyond salvation... clichéd... sophomoric... all too neat and tidy to make any lasting impression. What the hell has happened to Woody Allen, anyway? Here's a guy whose beautifully neurotic films and plays of the past: From A to Z (literally - that was the name of his first Broadway theatre production...) What's new Pussycat" (his very first scripted movie) Annie Hall... Manhattan... Hannah and Her Sisters... I could go on: Radio Days... Crimes and Misdemeanors... et. al., were winning all kinds of awards as critically acclaimed works that were relevant in their time... Now, it seems, Allen just throws up on a screen, anything he damn well likes, and pity the audience that thinks it's going to get anything remotely close to his past genius. It got to the point with me that - with Allen, typically not reigning in his actors - Ewan Mcgregor was allowed to get whinny, practically every time he opened his mouth. That over-indulgence in an actor normally on its own would be bad enough. But having to listen to McGregor deliver his lines with a hyper-extended Cockney accent just killed the very scenes in which this otherwise consummate young Scottish star was required to be a bit over-the-top because the plot development demanded it. When he was ranting, his voice got so hard to take that I wanted to shut the volume off and just go with sub-titles - only to find no relief there either... the sub-titles were only available in French! lol Thank gawd for Colin Farrell. If there is any redeeming quality to this film - it's the under-stated performance by Ireland's young pride and joy! As the plot got more complicated and involved - and the script more disjointed - Farrell took off, to a place all great actors go to find sustenance in their work, even when and while their director fails them. I thought Farrell was good in "In Bruges", and that was with gifted guidance. Here, he's even better and truly in his zone, despite Allen's clumsy treatment of both, his characters and his plot. And what left me totally disgusted was the ending! How boringly neat and utterly super-efficient for Woody to wrap the movie up in such a hurry... with the film's own cinematic equivalent of a dangling participle slipped in at the end involving the two very uninteresting female protagonists in the film. What the hell was he thinking? I've got a feeling those other 94 poor souls in OPL who are waiting to see this movie - are going to be just as cheesed off as I was - when they themselves get there!