A glossy, slick, star studded, spy-romcom in Singapore!!! Sounds like a recipe for success right?? Wrong!!! Read on to find out more!
In 2009 I saw a gem of a movie called Sophie’s Revenge. A quirky romantic comedy about a ridiculously cute Zhang Ziyi. The film was funny, sweet, induced that warm fuzzy feeling us tough guys don’t like to admit being capable of feeling, and it pretty much hit all the right notes all round. It was also, refreshingly, the first time that I saw Zhang Ziyi in a role where she wasn’t constantly angry and trying to kill everyone. What a pleasant surprise.
Zoom forward to 2013 and we
find Zhang Ziyi reprising her role as Sophie in what is intended to be
something of a prequel. I’ll tell you
something right off the bat, I had no idea it was a prequel until I did some
reading around after I saw the movie.
Sure Zhang Ziyi is called Sophie again and it even stars the same
actresses as her friends, but the reason I didn’t see it as an extension to the
first movie in any way is because it just doesn’t fit with the events in the
original film. It felt like something of
a lame attempt to rip off her own movie and, unfortunately, even with the
knowledge that the movie is intended as a prequel, I still feel the same
way. This is probably the biggest
disappointment of the year so far.
The premise starts just too
similarly to before. Zhang Ziyi is writing
her cute cartoons about a gal falling in love with a super spy and going on
many outlandish adventures. She yearns
for excitement in her own life amidst her boring go nowhere job as a flight tele-sales
assistant. Her luck appears to be on the
up when she wins an all expenses paid holiday to Singapore! Yay!! But the real consequence is nay.
In Singapore she meets real
super spy David played by Leehom Wang.
Queue some silly mistaken identity shenanigans and soon Sophie finds
herself living in the kinds of adventures she writes about.
I tell you, there are so many
possibilities for filmmakers in Singapore, it’s such a cool cosmopolitan city,
it’s just waiting to be the center stage of an amazing action movie. Of course THIS is not that movie.
While Sophie’s Revenge felt
fresh and original, My Lucky Star may become the very definition of generic
by-the-numbers romcom movie making. The plot is paper-thin and the poorly
executed James Bond style spy humour would annoy even Johnny English. It’s just plain and simply very bad.
There is zero chemistry
between our two leads; we feel absolutely no reason for them to fall in love
other than the fact that they are the leads of the movie. The laughs are cheap and rehashes of what we’ve
seen in a million other movies. The
action, I would argue, is not even as enjoyable as watching an episode of Power
Rangers!
I really cannot find anything
positive to say about this movie. Sure
it’s great to see Zhang Ziyi back on the big screen but not when she is just
trying to simply cash in on the success of 2009’s Sophie’s Revenge!
Give it a miss.
Rating 2 out of 5.
Bobby
No comments:
Post a Comment