Séduit par le nom du réalisateur et par le casting...g zappé au bout de 40mn

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Unfathomably awful

Author: thoward1223 from Virginia, USA
2 April 2006
 

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Just horrifying. I like Cameron Crowe, I sat through Vanilla Sky (although mostly just for the soundtrack), and I think Orlando Bloom is likable enough. But I wanted this movie to end more than any movie I've seen in years. It just seemed like one big contrived emotional breakdown in search of a catharsis that never arrives.

Here's the thing. The last section of the movie -- in which Orlando Bloom's character follows the map laid out by Kirsten Dunst's creepy stalker-ish character to finally open up and find himself and blah blah blah -- was also awful, and staggeringly dumb. BUT -- that could have been the basis for a real movie. Not the map part, just the wandering around and finding himself part. Maybe not an original movie, but a real one. Instead it was just one more disconnected sequence tacked onto a whole slew of them, and it made me angry that the movie was made in the first place.

Hated it.

72 out of 128 people found the following review useful:

A study in the overuse of cloying, trite plot devices

Author: yegdad from Edmonton, Canada
8 July 2006

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Every time I thought this movie couldn't get worse, it did.

For this reason alone, I kept watching: morbid fascination.

It was a slow-motion traffic accident.

Stereotyping small town locals as one-dimensional hicks is such a lame and tiresome plot device. NOT stereotyping would have made things interesting. (For example, the movie "Junebug" shows how apparently simple town folk can have depth.) There must have been some temporal anomalies from Star Trek afoot in Elizabethtown -- how else can you explain:

- how Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst) was able assemble a scrapbook/map and accompanying 42-hour CD music mix (complete with her perky voice-over!) while also spending all her time seducing Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom), chatting him up over the phone, and saving guests from a burning hotel?

- how Hollie Baylor (Susan Sarandon) was able to take stand-up comic classes, tap dancing lessons, learn organic cooking techniques and auto-repair, and travel from Oregon to Kentucky all in the time between hearing of the death of her husband and burying him? (Her scene on stage was the most painful part of this "traffic accident". I just couldn't take my eyes away!)

- how a running shoe product launch could possibly cost a billion dollars and why 28-year old is given a billion dollars to play with in the first place?

Finally, the road trip is the final offender.

Because the movie couldn't dredge up any of its own meaningful iconic symbolism, it tries to cheat by force-feeding movie-goers with motherhood Americana. The movie takes us to the Lorraine Motel balcony where Martin Luther King was assassinated -- presumably, the audience would be loath to criticize a motherhood icon such as Marting Luther King and -- the producers hope -- would be loath to criticize the movie.

They're wrong -- we can tell the difference.

(Notice that Tom Cruise is one of the producers so, on several levels, we shouldn't be so surprised by this.)

20 out of 32 people found the following review useful:

Dull as a cloudy day at the beach !!

Author: statajack from United Kingdom
15 December 2006

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

With OB playing the lead role, I was hoping to get a glimpse of his acting prowess in a film that doesn't involve swords, arrows, ugly creatures and fast action camera-work. The first ten minutes started quite well, with possible undertones of some ironic black humour coming up. He gets fired for losing his employer the best part of USD 1 billion. Fair do's ! Then he's on a jumbo jet heading for Kentucky, the only passenger, and the stewardess (KD) tells him with a straight face that he saved all their jobs for being on that flight. Oh Oh ! The alarm bells start ringing. Was that supposed to be serious, or an attempt at humour !! The film then switches to Elizabethtown, and dies completely........

The relationship development between OB and KD is completely nauseating, and so endlessly boring with clichéd dialogue. It goes on and on and on, with no meaningful or interesting word from either of them. I pity both these actors for having to spout the most monotonous and diabolical script I have heard in years.

After an hour and a quarter, I couldn't stand anymore, and switched it off.

A few nights later I returned to the rest of the 2-hour film hoping that it would get going. It just got worse. Susan Sarandon at a sickly American-style funeral party doing a daft little jig on stage, and finally OB's road trip which made me want to tear out teeth.

The bit that bugged me the most, we never find out how OB lost his employer a large wad of cash !! If anybody wants a free DVD, you can have my copy with pleasure, otherwise it's going for a flying lesson out the window !

26 out of 45 people found the following review useful:

Just terrible!!!

Author: jyoti-gori from United States
10 April 2006

This movie was just awful. I had such high hopes for Orli, but man, he's like the vacusuck of personality--he pulls personality out of other people! So, they paired him with an overly gregarious KD in an attempt to level out to semi-normal people but to a very ill effect. She was annoying, he was boring, the family was farcical, the setting was a shallow stereotype of mid-America, and the attempt to evoke an emotional tie with the main character by having his father die was absurdly misplaced since the character himself obviously didn't seem to care a whole heck of a lot.

I hate not finishing movies, stories, what have you. But this, I could not bear to sit through. After cleaning half my house in sheer boredom during the first half, I finally turned it off to find something better to do, like counting the dog hairs on the back of my couch ...

9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:

it amazes me that there is a market for this

Author: robotgrass from Canada
25 June 2007

Just a horrible attempt at a feel good movie which losses it luster after the first 12 minutes. The most annoying unresolved issues that were simply not addressed included:

1. What went so terribly wrong with the design of a single shoe that could possibly cost a company one billion dollars? A mystery...!

2. Why was the father who passed away such a revered individual? Why did a whole town to come to a halt, pay tribute, and mourn?? Come on Mr / Ms. Scriptwriter; give us something here...was he a war hero? Did he foil a bank robbery?

3. How is it possible that the main character was the only one on a 747 ? Has anyone out there ever been the only one on a major airliner going to where ever?

These points are not details, they are gnawing issues which demand answers.

Someone out there wasted two hours of my life, and I am not happy.

30 out of 55 people found the following review useful:

Get out of Elizabethtown...

Author: Oliver-50 from United States
4 February 2006

Watching 'Elizabethtown' is in many ways like watching a young strange child approach you in the supermarket and start yapping your ear off. Sure it's kind of cute, but you just wish it would shut up and leave you alone.

Orlando Bloom plays Drew who after being responsible for the loss of nearly a billion dollars at a his company, decides he wants to kill himself. Just as he is about to commit the act he learns of his fathers death and has to go to Kentucky to arrange the burial plans. As luck would have it he meets a plucky young flight attendent and during an all night phone conversation they fall head over heels in love. Isn't that nice.

It's hard to attack a film whose intentions are so good-natured and sweet - but boy, do I need to. It's very hard to appreciate the happy moments in a film when even the scenes where people are hurting reek of tacky sentiment. As example - when Bloom decides to strap a knife to his stationary bike and kill himself; Bloom has this smirky pretty-boy daftness as if winking at the audience saying "I'm not really going to die, don't worry" and it kills a scene that with a stronger actor could have worked.

Throughout the entire film Bloom lovingly sulks and cheerily grins at every turn. He is a weak actor who can't even come close to the heart of a character. He can pull off action fare like Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean - mostly because there are stronger actors to assist, and it's physical work - but he is the whole show here and it's a performance to scoff at, not laugh with.

On to Kirsten Dunst; a much more credible actor that Bloom who as well manages to fall flat on her face. Perhaps it's the southern accent that fades in and out with every passing scene. Or maybe it's the way she plays ditzy one moment and then switches to deep-thinker the next. Whatever the case it's a performance that is cheerily annoyingly off balance. It makes one wonder what the wonderful Amy Adams (Junebug) could have done with this role. Dunst can usually find sympathy in overbearing characters (Crazy/Beautiful, Virgin Suicides, Spiderman) but just like Bloom, all she has to do is look pretty and smile for the camera.

As for Cameron Crowe who's hollow screenplay is so cheerily in your face happy - it becomes devoid of any credible sentiment. This, much like the slightly better but still awful Singles - is just another excuse for Crowe to make a great mix tape. The music is terrific, but we're not paying to listen to a great soundtrack, we're paying to watch a movie. And this movie is so excruciatingly awful that's it's a waste of some fine music.

7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:

One of the Worst Movies of my Long Lifetime

Author: ld8t from United States
7 August 2007

Hell, I'm even FROM Elizabethtown (Kentucky), where most of this dog takes place, and even that fact couldn't keep me awake. Doggedly slow pace, mind-numblingly boring characters (especially the flight attendant played by the leading lady), hideous writing, no conflict, no nothing. Just two hours of dumb. My wife and I (she has also spent some time in Elizabethtown, or "E-Town" as it's known in Kentucky) can't understand how such an execrable movie got some good reviews and some good WOM. The positive comments on this site mystify us further. I don't think further words are necessary, but the IMDb just bounced my review for not being long enough -- minimum of eight lines, it said. I can't even imagine any way "Elizabethtown" could merit eight lines of criticism, but here are some tries. Thumbs down! Blech! Sheesh! Enough?

28 out of 52 people found the following review useful:

Worst movie of the year!

Author: Samantha Clemans from United States
11 February 2006

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I just watched Elizabethtown last night, and all day today I have been thinking of all the reasons why this movie was the worst movie I have seen all year.

*First of all, the creators of this film were totally trying to rip off the movie Garden State, and they did a horrible job at it! the whole fact that Drew's dad died and he went back to a small town to visit family and to "try and find himself" is totally ridiculous and almost an exact replica of Garden State.

*Second, the acting was LAME!!! Orlando Bloom should stick to Pirates of the Caribbean or Lord of the Rings, he definitely does not do well in phony love stories. Kirsten Dunst was totally annoying, the whole camera picture thing she did, was stupid, and it makes me hate her as an actress....ughhh.

*Third, Alec Baldwin was in it! how low can you go??!! *fourth, I just didn't believe that there are characters like these in real life. the way the actors talk with each other was simply just phony and not genuine.

*Fifth and for all, the plot was ridden with holes. Conversations characters had were unrealistic and unimportant. I feel like Cameron Crowe just watched Garden State and decided like he could steal the ideas from the movie and make a ton of money off of it So if you want to see a really lame, boring, horribly acted movie, watch this one, otherwise read a book or watch a truly good movie. Don't waste your time!!!!

45 out of 86 people found the following review useful:

Waste of time

Author: Pamsterdam from Netherlands
6 December 2005

I didn't even have high expectations of this movie. I just wanted to sit back and enjoy a typical boy-meets-girl boy-likes-girl boy-gets-girl movie. How hard can it be to make another romcom? Well, very, apparently. For starters, it is extremely slow-paced. It just doesn't set off, drags on forever and simply won't end. Every time the romance kicks in, the story switches to another family-related and totally non-interesting subject. The scene of Mitch Baylor's memorial service was the absolute limit. I can just see my mother give away a show of stand-up comedy and tap-dancing on stage in front of a bunch of family members she hasn't spoken to in 17 years, when her beloved husband has just died. Yeah right. Why on earth did Susan Sarandon sign up for this?? She looked great, but shouldn't have lowered herself to this level. As for our golden couple, Kirsten and Orlando, I didn't buy it. When she was standing behind the mike, yelling "I like you!", it just didn't arrive. And her constantly making these imaginary photographs was the most annoying thing ever!! Sorry to say, but she's just not hot enough for Orlando. Which brings me to the one thing worth looking at in this movie: Orlando Bloom. And that's just for his looks, not his acting. Steer clear of this movie!

7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:

There's something worse than a failure and a fiasco. It is called "Elizabethtown"

Author: Galina from Virginia, USA
22 October 2007

I've seen four movies directed Cameron Crowe and I like three of them very much, "Jerry Maguire", "Almost Famous" (which is one of the best films of last years), and "Vanilla Sky" which was a successful remake and very interesting mysterious movie. Crowe's latest, Elizabethtown (2005), though, was one of the most horrifying and embarrassing watching experiences I've ever had and I've seen thousands of movies. I always try to (and usually able to) find some redeeming values even in the movies that I strongly dislike but I found nothing to like, to be involved with, to identify with in "Elizabethtown". In the opening scene, Phil DeVoss, (Alec Baldwin), the owner of the multi-billion shoe company and Drew Baylor's (Orlando Bloom) boss predicted that "sh*t will hit the fence". He was right in his prediction. I think Baldwin was the luckiest actor because that opening scene was his only scene and he did not have to participate in the "embarassmenttown". I can see that Cameron Crowe wanted to make a film that celebrates life, with the main character sorting out his priorities, realizing what is really important in life and meeting his true love. Perhaps... but I believe that Crowe has failed miserably, at least for me. More than anything I wanted this movie to end. Everything and everyone seemed un-natural and false, the dialogs, the ridiculous un-involving situations, the unfunny and tasteless jokes, the complete lack of chemistry between two romantic leads. Orlando Bloom was quite tolerable but Kirsten Dunst's character Claire simply scared and annoyed me; she was sooo good and sweet, and kind, and supportive that it made me cringe every time she was on the screen. The road trip across America that Drew took in the last 30 minutes of the film in search of himself or whatever, has offered few interesting historical places but they would be better presented on the Travel channel. The most memorable (but for the wrong reasons) single moment in the movie belongs to Susan Sarandon as Hollie Baylor. Sarandon is a wonderful actress and a beautiful woman. Time has no power over her. She is the closest to screen Goddess we have and she had a 10 minutes monologue at her husband's funeral which is easily the most ridiculous and stupidest scene I've seen (and heard) in the movies in the long time. Perhaps, there was a good movie, funny and moving, subtle and sweet hiding inside the monster called "Elizabethtown" but hard as I tried I could not find it.