If this "magical" love story was inspired by Helena Bonham Carter, then no wonder it failed. The kind of woman only an Emo would stick into his movie...

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2009)

First of all, I'd like to thank famous Hollywood Emo Tim Burton for making his latest wife a little more acceptable to watch with all that witch make-up: a definite improvement over her real face. Helena Bonham Carter (what a snotty, preppy name) has also looked far better than herself in that awful 2001 monkey movie playing an ape-esse, and so it is again. Perhaps Tim should have her play a chair next time? Or a pair of socks locked up in a drawer?
On the other hand, I'd like to advise Burton to see an eye doctor because if he's going to continue marrying such women, then he ought not complain when one day he does get glasses and realizes in shock that all his kids look like something leftover from a flood. Will you stop casting your talentless wives already?? What is it with these weakling male directors who are p-wipped into submission by their career-greedy wives with little or no talent?
Which brings me to my next complaint about this sappy "Baron Forrest Munchausen Gump" wonder-less concoction: the casting. Why would you cast not one, not two, but THREE British actors to play U.S. Southerners? Why? And I mean WHY. Are all American actors really that bad? On the other hand, when Timmy makes a movie set in England he gets a bunch of Americans to play Brits. What the hell for? The very likable Ewan McGregor had already proved ten years ago that he can't do any American accent, much less a Southern one, in "Night Watch"; he sounds hopelessly unconvincing in both movies. Tim's wife, Helena Bonham Carter-Burton The Third, can't keep it going either without the occasional screw-up, like the way she pronounced "impossible". Finney, on the other hand, gets it right - but then again he is quite a different class of actor than McGregor or the mousy Carter. Casting Jessica Lange was a mistake, too: if you have an old woman in the script then get a woman that LOOKS old, not a surgically-altered former 70s King Kong bimbo (there... the monkeys again) who can barely manage a smile what with all that overly tightened skin. (And then those old actresses complain about not getting any roles!). Watching Finney mess about with Lange in the bathtub wasn't so much a sentimental moment as it was vomit-inducing.
The most obvious problem with this movie is... well... the movie itself. Not nearly as syrupy as the pedophilic "Finding Neverland", and yet it's another "grand" Hollywood schmaltz-tale, complete with fortune-cookie wisdom, a hollow sentimental soundtrack, clichés galore, and the obligatory death of a main character. Boo-hoo-hoo. Spielberg would have been proud. Not quite as bad as "The Colour Purple" or any other filmic travesty, to be sure, but still quite a large bundle of stereotypical baloney. The first 20 minutes I had to watch in two separate sittings - that's how dull the intro was.
Some stories are okay, some are simply hopeless. When Ewan decides to work 3 years for De Vito to find that damn blonde, I had to wonder... He could have probably found her in half that time, if he had simply LOOKED for her. "I Love Sandra". Give me a barf bag. Ewan's character makes such an idealistic ass of himself that I sort of ended up enjoying his getting beaten up by the blonde's fiancé. She then predictably dumps her bully fiancé - which as we know is realistic because all women HATE tough men - and the two of them fall lovingly into the grass that has a heart-shaped indenture in it... So sweet. So absolutely flowery. Such visual prose. I'm touched. I think I'm going to pretend I'm a bored middle-aged housewife and weep into my smelly hankie for a bit...
If you carefully look at Helena Bonham Carter-Burton III (I know: a tough proposition) as the witch, she does resemble Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp is hands-down Tim's favourite actor. Tim fell in love with Helena. Draw your own conclusion.
BF has some good photography, though not nearly as spectacular as Timmy's best movies, but the emotional side of the story is so utterly cheesy, so predictable, that it can elicit wonder and tears only in indiscriminating, easy-to-impress viewers. Apparently, most of ye people out there belong to that category.
Ever notice how similar Helena (without make-up) and Billy Armstrong from Green Day look?