I'm amazed at the high ratings

Rating: 6/10 (1 May 2004)

This is a pretty good movie considering that the director took a meat axe to his original creation because he had made it 80 minutes too long. Apparently, almost all of the scenes that were to introduce us to the characters were chopped leaving a very disconnected beginning. In addition, the ending was supposed to bring everything neatly together (rather than just having everyone show up at Heathrow) with Rowan Atkinson portraying an angel who brought all of the couples together (didn't it look strange that Atkinson just happened to be in line where Liam Neeson needed him?). Not only was the angel dropped, everything the angel did (which was supposed to make it all make sense) went with it. It is hard to believe that a director could leave himself in the position of having to chop one-third of his film. It is even harder to believe that fans would give the pasted-together two-thirds such high marks. The acting, which was almost uniformly top notch, and the outstanding music made the movie look much better than the director deserved, and perhaps the story he ended up with was better than the one he wanted to make. I guess it truly is better to be lucky than good.