Review: Water for Elephants

-
A circus of depression.


Jacob (Robert Pattenson) is a veterinary student who is just about to take his final exam when he is informed his parents have died in a car accident. Their home belongs to the state, so Jacob is left with nothing. To rub it in the officer that tells him this delivers the gem of a line "Well if you hadn't gone to college maybe this wouldn't have happened." Nice. Jacob packs his bags and sets out for work. He hops a train that happens to be a traveling circus run by August. (Christoph Waltz) August is a hard ass and initially wants to throw Jacob off of the train, he eventually gives in to the fact that Jacob was becoming a vet, and keeps him aboard to assist with the animals. Jacob begins to form a close relationship with Marlana, (Reese Witherspoon) August's wife and star of their main attraction. Eventually they acquire an elephant named Rosie, and August puts Jacob in charge of training it. Rosie is what brings Jacob and Marlana together, and also what brings out the worst in August.

The pacing of this movie is horrible to say the least. I felt like it dragged it's feet the entire way. It's not that the movie was uninteresting, it just felt like it could've been wrapped up a lot quicker. I try to give Pattenson the benefit of the doubt. I try to look beyond his unfortunate role as Edward Cullen, but his acting didn't really help here. He's easily the weakest link. Christoph Waltz plays a terrific villain and he gets you to hate him quickly. His scenes with Rosie are hard to watch, but effective with what we should be feeling about this character. Reese Witherspoon was good as well, although she and Pattenson have absolutely zero chemistry. Looking back, the elephant was my favorite character. I'll let you decide if that's sad or not. (It is)

A few things I did enjoy about the film were the beautiful music and the sweet ending. Some might find it corny, but I liked it. It made me feel a bit better about waiting so long for it to happen.

Recommended: No

Grade: C

Memorable Quote: "We had a pickled Hippo for two weeks." - August (Christoph Waltz)

Comments

  1. LesyaMay 1, 2011 at 4:39 AM

    Nice review. I still will be seeing this film. Even though I don't like both Pattinson and Witherspoon.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Batman

-
Image
Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) has quietly been trying to make a difference as The Batman in Gotham. He can't be everywhere. He works closely with Lt Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and they face a puzzling crime by a masked murderer going by The Riddler. (Paul Dano) As the stakes get higher, they realize just how deep corruption runs in Gotham.  The Batman is first and foremost a detective story. Director Matt Reeves obviously took inspiration from films like Se7en and Zodiac when he crafted this story. S e7en is one of my all time favorite films, so that worked well for me. I loved seeing Batman and Gordon work as a team. Same with Batman and Selina. (Zoe Kravitz) They ooze chemistry. As much as I love the Nolan trilogy, Christian Bale only really had good chemistry with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Here, Pattinson and Kravitz click together instantly.  I'll admit I was worried about Pattinson as Batman. His Bruce is VERY mopey, which fits with the story. My main issue with the movie,
Read more

Thursday Movie Picks: Wedding Movies

-
Image
How fitting that Wandering Through The Shelves has us start the month of June with movies about weddings. June brides are a thing, right? At least that's what people kept telling me when I got married in June. I just picked it because it was warm. To be honest, I don't like many wedding movies, so this was kind of tough, but here's a few I can tolerate. 1) Wedding Crashers This is one of my favorite comedies until the last 20 minutes or so when it falls flat on its face. But it's so hilarious and quotable before all of that, I can forgive it. Lock it up. 2) Rachel Getting Married I used this one for a pick last year but it's easily my favorite movie involving a wedding. The acting is fantastic. I 3) Corpse Bride Truth be told, I wasn't crazy about Corpse Bride, but like I said. Slim pickings in the wedding movie world for me. I'd watch this over a "classic" like My Best Friend's Wedding or Runaway Bride any day.  click th
Read more

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing Bobby, and the
Read more