Awful

Rating: 2/10 (18 July 2002)

Try as hard as I might, I can't find anything to say in this film's favour. On the other hand, a thousand words wouldn't be enough to list everything about this film that makes my blood boil.
First of all, the script is awful. I don't mean 'bad', I mean it's inexcusably hopeless. The story itself is uninteresting, the characters are dull and uninvolving. The direction is uninspired and by-the-numbers. Frequently, this film is so bad it's embarassing - sometimes it feels like a parody. Every time there's anything remotely dramatic, the orchestral score swells up and slow-motion kicks in. It's a film that tries to be about real people and real emotions, but the only place any of this can be considered real life is Hollywood. Every five seconds it keeps reminding you - this is a film. This isn't real. Real people don't act like this. Real people don't feel like this.
This is a film you feel you've watched a hundred times before; that's because you have, it was just called something else. Everything - every last little detail - is a tired, overused cliche. The DVD package describes it as "an uplifting story about the indestructible human spirt". Come on! That's been on the back of so many DVDs and videos it's ridiculous by now. Don't these film-makers have anything new to make films about?
A worthless, boring and derivative waste of time.