Cold and inedible

Rating: 1/10 (18 April 2005)

This was such a boring movie. It was tacky and painful. As some others have mentioned, the acting was weird, but that's not so bad. The champagne in the pool scene was quirky and fun and the sex scenes were OK, but it didn't warrant the three hours of agony I endured trying to sit through it! I had heard nothing about the film so I had no expectations (except that I'd love it). Well I didn't. And sadly, it was the director's cut *yawn*. For a film to have a (positive) profound effect on me, it has to make me feel something. There were a lot of opportunities to show real passion, but instead, for reasons of budget, laziness or just bad planning, it just didn't come together.
There's the diving, but a better example of this is the use of spaghetti in the film. Perhaps it's a film only for dolphin lovers, but personally, I love food, and what Besson did with the mountains of anaemic spaghetti is just inexcusable. In one scene, Enzo orders spaghetti del mare, saying to Jacques, "It's delicious here. It's the one thing they really know how to make". Well it's the one thing that Besson knows how to ruin. Did he think that the camera would not pick up the fact that there was no sauce whatsoever on the spaghetti? Did he think that the audience wouldn't notice or care? Well I did. The fact that the spaghetti seems to be a recurring theme should entail that more care be put into its presentation. But no. There's another scene where we are with the family and a lot of spaghetti is being served. This time there is a little bit of sauce adorning the pasta, but then when they start eating, it's just plain white spaghetti. Firstly, where's the continuity and secondly, where's the flavour? You can see that Jacques is just struggling with this inedible cold pasta that's been on the set for hours. And I guess that's how I'd sum up the movie: cold inedible pasta, only now with the director's cut, there's more of it. Great if you like that stuff I suppose.