Category Archives: Movie Reviews – S

REVIEW: “Star Trek: First Contact”

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STAR TREK POSTERStar Trek is all the buzz right now and with the newest film about to hit U.S. theaters, I thought it would be fun to talk about one of my favorite Star Trek movies. For clarity, I wasn’t a huge fan of the original series. It wasn’t until “The Next Generation” that I became really interested in the Star Trek universe. The TNG cast would appear in four feature films that connected to their 7 season series. I think the best of those movies was “Star Trek: First Contact”. Even more, I think a good case could be made that it’s the best Star Trek movie period. We’ll save that debate for another time.

“First Contact” is directly connected to a popular storyline from the television series and it doesn’t take long to see that. I’m not going to say you would be totally lost unless you’re familiar with the story, but it certainly adds a lot to the movie if you know the story it’s tied into. The film begins with Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) dreaming about his past experience with the mysterious and menacing Borg. The Borg are a group of cybernetic organisms made up of various species who have been “assimilated” into their collective. The Borg capture and brutally assimilate others through a painful implant procedure which eventually connects them to the one domineering “hive mind”. The Borg themselves are half-living / half-machine drones and the collective’s ultimate goal is perfection as they see it.

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The USS Enterprise – E

Picard is jarred from his troubling dream to find out that a lone Borg cube has launched an attack on Earth. It’s funny how out-of-the-blue this occurs in the film with seemingly no buildup whatsoever. The film expects the audience to hop onboard and go with it. Picard is ready to enter the fight but he and his Enterprise crew are ordered to stay away in fear that Picard’s past assimilation by the Borg could become a liability. Picard disobeys orders and enters the fray where he learns that the Borg plan to travel back in time to prevent what’s known on Earth as the day of First Contact. It’s when a lushy visionary named Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) introduces warp travel which leads to our first contact with alien life. By keeping this from happening, the Borg will keep their biggest threat, the Federation, from interfering with their plans.

The Enterprise follows the Borg back in time where the movie splinters into two storylines. An away team is sent down to Earth to ensure Cochrane follows through with his test flight while others stay aboard the Enterprise to fight off the Borg who are attempting to take the ship. Jonathan Frakes, who also plays first officer Will Riker, handles the directing after big names like Ridley Scott and John McTiernan turned the movie down. This turned out to be a good decision. Frakes’ knowledge of the material after years on the TV series pays off.

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James Cromwell, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis

Frakes weaves the stories together nicely and he’s able to keep the vital Star Trek tone and feel even though the movie features a much bigger budget and heavier dose of special effects. This is something the newer Star Trek reboot, a film I’ve grown to have some appreciation for, was never able to do. Writers Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga deserve a lot of credit for that as well. The two begin the first draft of the script shortly after the release of “Star Trek: Generations”, a film they also wrote. Their familiarity with the characters and the history of the franchise is certainly realized on screen. The story is smart and carries with it the typical Star Trek tendencies of dialogue over action although we do get more action than we’re used to seeing.

The cast is another reason the movie works so well. The main cast has already put so much of themselves into these characters that they know them by heart. Patrick Stewart is still the best Star Trek captain in my book. He’s rock solid yet again as Captain Picard. It’s also great to see Frakes, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton, and Marina Sirtis reprising their roles as Picard’s crew. I also enjoyed Cromwell’s performance which is sometimes a bit hokey but still entertaining. It’s said Tom Hanks was offered the role but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts. And I have to mention Alice Krige as the disturbing yet seductive Borg Queen. Not only does the character offer some of the film’s slicker visual moments but she gives us a Star Trek villain unlike any we’ve seen.

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Michael Dorn, Patrick Stewart, Neal McDonough

One complaint than could be hurled at “Star Trek: First Contact” is that even with its bigger budget it sometimes feels like a longer television episode. That’s not a big deal with me because there are a couple of beautifully done effects sequences that clearly make the movie stand out, but there are many other moments that give the argument some validity. There are also a few questions that are never addressed at all. For example Geordi La Forge (Burton) no longer has his air filter visor. Now he has some type of ocular implants but its never even hinted at. And as I mentioned earlier, the film offers no real setup to the Borg attack at all.

These issues may have bothered some more than they did me because they never seriously hindered my enjoyment of the film. This is the first Star Trek movie to feature the TNG cast exclusively and the result was fantastic. Those looking for a standard Hollywood sci-fi flick may not leave “First Contact” completely satisfied. But Star Trek fans will find that same style and unique form of storytelling that they’ve come to expect from the franchise. Personally, I love it.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

REVIEW: “Star Trek” (2009)

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Star Trek PosterThe summer movie season is off and running and one of the year’s most talked about releases is due out in a few days. I’m talking about “Star Trek Into Darkness”, the J.J. Abrams sequel to his 2009 reboot of the franchise. With so much hype and anticipation swirling around the new movie I thought it would be a good time to go back and revisit the first installment, a much loved film that I had pretty mixed feelings about. Would a second viewing give me a better appreciation for what Abrams and company were able to accomplish or would it simply reaffirm my initial frustrations with the movie?

First off, attempting to relaunch or reboot the Star Trek franchise is a pretty hefty and gutsy task. Perhaps only Star Wars’ fan base eclipses the passion and devotion of the group affectionately known as “Trekkies”. Tinkering with and altering the beloved universe first created by the late great Gene Roddenberry would be the equivalent to playing with fire and one would assume this was high on the list of the filmmakers’ considerations. Well I’m no Trekkie and I’m not as well versed in Star Trek lore as many, but I have say I’m surprised that more diehard fans didn’t have issues with the liberties and modernizations we see here. More on that later.

“Star Trek” is constructed as a completely new franchise launcher. It creates its own world beginning with the origin stories of the popular Star Trek characters Captain Kirk and Spock and telling how they and the crew came together through Starfleet. The film actually begins with a bang. A flashback shows the federation starship USS Kelvin investigating a lightning storm anomaly when it encounters a huge Romulan mining vessel converted to a warship. A battle breaks out forcing the Kelvin’s first officer (Chris Hemsworth) to evacuate everyone from the ship including his pregnant wife. He then manually flies the Kelvin into the mammoth enemy vessel causing a distraction so the escape pods can get away. This hero’s name was George Samuel Kirk.

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The USS Enterprise

The movie then fast-forwards and puts the spotlight on his son James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). He’s grown up to be a rebellious and rambunctious sort who is challenged to enter Starfleet by Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), the Captain of the USS Enterprise who served with his father. While at the academy he befriends Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban), flirts with Uhuru (Zoe Saldana), and gets off on the wrong foot with Spock (Zachary Quinto). But in a familiar story turn that we’ve seen in everything from “Top Gun” to “Starship Troopers”, the cadets are forced into action when a distress call is made from Spock’s home planet of Vulcan. Through this we’re introduced to other familiar characters including Sulu (John Cho), Scotty (Simon Pegg), and Chekov (Anton Yelchin).

Eric Bana plays the rogue Romulan Nero who we see in the opening and who pops up later to serve as the main antagonist. He has a serious bone to pick with Spock and his revenge-fueled presence poses a major threat. Aside from the normal franchise origin stuff, this tiff between Nero and Spock is a big part of the story. There’s also the story of Jim’s evolution from an immature, self-centered hothead into a responsible, heroic member of Starfleet. All of these strands are woven together pretty nicely and the film moves through them with better pacing than I originally remembered. There are also some fantastic special effects and a cool new Enterprise with an impressive modernized bridge that I thought looked great.

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The USS Enterprise crew

But there were some issues I originally had with “Star Trek” that unfortunately didn’t go away with a fresh viewing. First, I know this is a relaunching of the Star Trek franchise and some of it is aimed at the action-starved audiences of today. But to me there were times where this didn’t feel anything like a Star Trek movie. There were certain scenes that felt so jarringly out of place yet perfectly in tune with the film industries affection for ‘Hollywoodizing’ their big movies. Again, I understand that Abrams and company are showing their new vision but I wish they would have trusted or cared more for the Star Trek formula. But honestly, while it’s still an issue, it didn’t seem to bother me as much during this viewing.

Another issue I still have is with the handling and redefining of some of the characters. I don’t know if it’s just an attempt to force in a fairly underwhelming romance or if it’s simply political correctness, but I wasn’t crazy about Uhuru as a bigger character while McCoy, an important character in the original series, is reserved for comic relief. Maybe it’s because the romance between Uhuru and a certain crew member feels shallow and tacked on. There’s nothing wrong with Saldana’s performance but her role is pretty flimsy. Karl Urban does some great work channelling his best DeForrest Kelley. Even though ‘Bones’ is written almost exclusively for humor, Urban is fantastic and it’s a shame he was given something meatier to work with.

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Eric Bana is Nero

My revisit also verified one thing and clarified another. Zachary Quinto as Spock is by far the best bit of casting in the movie while Chris Pine left a better impression this time around than before. Quinto nicely sells Spock through his tone, mannerisms, and pitch-perfect deliveries. Pine ends much better than he begins. In the first half of the film he’s pretty hard to digest but as his material gets better so does his performance. In fact, overall I found him to be better than I remembered. I can’t really say the same for Pegg’s Scotty or Yelchin’s Chekov, but both of their issues dealt more closely with how their characters were written.

So now the big question. Did my time away from “Star Trek” change my perception of the film? Did this fresh look at the movie provide a better experience? I would have to say yes but only slightly. “Star Trek” is still a film with a handful of flaws. At times it tries to be too hip, too cute, and too modern at the expense of those proven elements that make “Star Trek” great. On the flip side, I did find myself enjoying and embracing more of what Abrams and company were doing. This was a better experience and my anticipation for the next movie has grown. I just hope for a more focused script with less corn and a little better handling of its characters. If that happens “Star Trek Into Darkness” could be a real treat.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

“The Seven Year Itch” – 4 STARS

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Classic Movie SpotlightSEVEN YEAR POSTERAcclaimed director Billy Wilder’s “The Seven Year Itch” was a movie that at the time drove the Motion Picture Production Code enforcers crazy. As risqué and seductive as the film was, it’s based on a much edgier play by George Axelrod. Wilder co-wrote the screenplay with Axelrod and ended up making several changes to satisfy the censors. But these alterations did nothing to hurt the picture. “The Seven Year Itch” is a smart and funny romantic comedy – exactly the kind of movie you would expect to get from Billy Wilder.

The story is set during a hot Manhattan summer when wives and children leave the city for cooler vacation sites leaving behind the men to work. This exodus, which resembles a massive animal migration, leaves a nerdy, insecure business executive named Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) alone while his wife and son head off to Maine. It doesn’t take long to see that Richard is a bit eccentric and unsure about himself. He also has a vivid imagination and often times finds himself daydreaming about things that feed his insecurities. He spends a lot of time carrying on conversations with himself, discussing his wife’s skepticism over his ladies man status as well as his unquestioned faithfulness to his wife while she’s away. While other husbands may be out catting around, not Richard Sherman. There will be no drinking, smoking, or womanizing for him.

Well that may be easier said than done, especially when he bumps into the new tenant in his apartment building. Now this is no ordinary tenant. The a gorgeous blonde bombshell is played by Marilyn Monroe. Apparently that says all you need to know because we never get her name (which may give us an indication of where Richard’s mind is at). She’s simply credited as The Girl. As you might expect, Richard is smitten with his beautiful neighbor and regardless of his best efforts and outspoken arguments with himself, he places himself right in the path of temptation.

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Richard’s array of flirtatious errors begins with inviting ‘the girl’ to his apartment for a drink. Bad move. The girl’s ditzy, playful, and seductive charm is more alluring than Richard imagined and soon he finds himself in too deep. A little fib here and a poor decision there has the already paranoid Richard a little on edge. The question becomes will he go too far and irreparably harm his marriage or will he come to his senses? On the other hand, does he even have any senses to come back to?

Tom Ewell was never what you would call a leading man. The consummate character actor, Ewell had a familiar face for film fans but his biggest career successes came on Broadway. His greatest recognition came with his lead performance in the stage version of “The Seven Year Itch”. He would play the role for three years, eventually winning a Tony Award. So Ewell was the natural choice to reprise his role of Richard Baxter in the film version. While the material was altered between stage and screen, Ewell handles it well and his common, everyday man persona works perfectly within Wilder’s film. In fact, my wife has said that Ewell’s portrayal of Richard’s neurosis is so convincing that it makes her antsy.

SEVEN YEAR2And then there’s Marilyn Monroe lighting up every scene with her radiance. While Ewell was clearly the lead character, it was Marilyn who received top billing. In 1955 Monroe was a hot property and it was her name that would serve as the biggest draw. She’s fantastic in this film. It’s easy to dismiss her character as another air-headed blonde but I think there’s more here than that. She certainly has her ditzy moments but its also feasible that she knows what she’s doing. Marilyn sells both sides and when combined with her obvious beauty and undeniable sexiness, she gives us one of her better cinema performances.

“The Seven Year Itch” has earned it’s place as an appreciated movie and many call it a true classic. There are several things about the film that is etched in pop culture history. Of course nothing more so than the iconic scene with Marilyn standing on the subway grating. The subway zips by underneath, the beautiful white dress of hers billowing from the air blowing up. But “The Seven Year Itch” has also been called an overly simplistic movie that at times feels too much like a play. I think that’s a fair criticism but one that doesn’t subtract too much from film. It’s witty and intelligent and ultimately unforgettable. The story never grows dull and the performances are a blast. While this may not be Billy Wilder’s best film it’s still a fun picture and a nice part of his amazing résumé.

“Say Anything…” – 4 STARS

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SAY ANYTHING POSTERBack in 1989 Cameron Crowe wrote and made his directorial debut with “Say Anything…”, a teen romantic comedy that still stands out from the bulk of the teen flicks we still get today. So many teen films adhere to the annoying formula of vulgarity mixed with immaturity and they treat their characters as shallow and stupid stereotypes. “Say Anything…” does none of that instead choosing to give us genuine characters who feel grounded in reality. These are the types of characters you can relate to and care about which makes for a much more authentic experience.

Crowe clearly has no interest in creating another portrait of teen debauchery. This film features real characters struggling with real problems and sharing real emotions. But Crowe’s writing also allows for a fair share of humor which always comes at just the right time. For all its sweet romance and well conceived drama there are some really funny moments as well. But perhaps what I’m the most thankful for is that Crowe actually gives us well developed and layered characters. He opens these people up for us and allows us to see what’s inside. That’s a key ingredient to getting the audience to latch onto the characters and their stories.

The story starts on graduation day at a small Seattle, Wasington high school. John Cusack plays Lloyd Dobler, an average, everyday student with no clear vision for what he wants to do with his life. He’s a very honest and forthright guy who finds himself attracted to Diane Court (Ione Skye), the class valedictorian. On paper this doesn’t look like the perfect match, something Lloyd’s best friend Corey (Lili Taylor) is happy to point out. But Lloyd and Diane are two characters that we’re happy to invest in and their unlikely romance makes for good cinema.

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Both Lloyd and Diane have struggles in there individual lives that Crowe takes time explore. I mentioned Lloyd’s uncertainty about his future and with graduation day behind him time is running out to decide what he’s going to do. His parents are overseas leaving him to live with his sister and her son. I couldn’t help but feel he was a kid needing his parents presence and love. Yet Lloyd is still a good guy even though he’s unsure. Diana is the smartest girl in school which has socially distanced her from her entire class. She doesn’t appear to have any close friends and her one confidant is her father Jim (John Mahoney). She chose to live with him during her parents’ divorce and the two have a very close and open relationship. But outside of her father, Diane has no one else she can truly call a friend.

Crowe stays away from the standard teen movie cliches and formulas when bringing these two together. Their emotions feel so authentic and their problems complicate things in ways people are sure to relate to. There’s a lot of talk about honesty in “Say Anything…”. Lloyd is a honest and sincere young man and that plays a big part in his relationship with Diane. Her relationship with her father is built entirely on honesty and trust. Honesty is such a big part of the film and when it’s broken, just like in real life, it can often times carry heavy consequences.

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Cusack is pitch perfect for this role. I’m not the biggest fan of his but I have admired some of his work. Here he relays that teen enthusiasm and nervousness surrounding new found love. But there’s also a innocence and vulnerability that he brings which I really responded to. Skye has her moments as well. At times her performance can be very convincing as she moves between heavy, emotional scenes and others where she conveys an almost childlike exuberance. But there are some times where she plays things a tad to big and she ends up standing out for the wrong reasons. Mahoney is brilliant as Diane’s father. He gives us such a likable character and several times we feel as if he’s going to go down the conventional road that most of these teen movie fathers travel. Mahoney is so believable and his performance really shines later in the film.

“Say Anything…” is over 20 years old now but it still maintains its freshness in a genre thats grown repetitive and stale. It’s a film that treats teens as sensible human beings with real world feelings and issues. Cameron Crowe’s writing is crisp and his direction is sharp. He gives us a film that feels like an 80’s movie with a new decade’s vibe bursting out of it. But regardless of its age and imperfections, “Say Anything…” still stands out today. But that’s no surprise. Good movies always seem to.

“Stoker” – 4 STARS

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STOKER POSTERThere are two things that you’ll instantly notice when watching “Stoker”. First, it’s clear that director Park Chan-wook is a true visionary. Second, there is something seriously not right in the Stoker household. “Stoker” is a twisted psychological thriller oozing with Hitchcockian influence and mixed with traces of classic horror. There’s a good reason for that. The script was written by Wentworth Miller (yes, the guy from “Prison Break”) who stated that he used Hitchcock’s classic thriller “Shadow of a Doubt” to help frame his story. But this isn’t a mere carbon copy. He takes things in a much darker direction which helps this movie stand on its own two feet.

Chan-wook is best known for his “Vengeance” trilogy and for “Oldboy” which is currently being remade by Spike Lee. “Stoker” marks his English-language debut and his fingerprints are all over this film. He takes Miller’s script and instantly incorporates his signature style which works to create a specific mood and tone throughout the picture. And if you’re familiar with his other work you know his films often incorporate uneasiness and brutality. Both are present here as well.

The story centers around young India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska). Her life is dealt a terrible blow when her father Richard is killed in a tragic car accident on her 18th birthday. India was very close with her father, something that can’t be said about her relationship with her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). The two have a strained relationship resulting from Evelyn’s emotional instability and her jealousy of India’s affection for her father. After the funeral, both meet Richard’s brother Charlie (Matthew Goode) who has been traveling abroad for years. Evelyn takes to him instantly but India doesn’t trust him. He has the charm and good looks but there’s something unnerving about this guy.

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Uncle Charlie volunteers to move in to help the family out. Evelyn is thrilled which does more to strain her relationship with India. The story unfolds and we quickly sense Charlie is up to no good. But there’s a lot more going on than anyone realizes. Most of the film deals with the tension between India and her Uncle. Her suspicions of Charlie are valid but neither she or the audience can figure the guy out. But it’s not as if she’s completely stable. She’s a very dark and brooding recluse. She lives in her own little world which is made clear by a couple of scenes that take place at her high school. The contrast between home and away is profound. Her nature and Charlie’s creepiness make for some good, eerie conversations between the two. But there’s also an undeniable psychosexual tension that permeates each scene. It’s a key part of the movie’s overall weirdness that sometimes has you squirming in your seat.

Wasikowska is an young actress that I’ve always been impressed with. She gives another solid performance here although the material doesn’t require much in terms of range. Throughout the entire film she maintains the same blank expression regardless of what’s happening. It’s nothing that allows her to flex her acting muscle yet it’s strikingly appropriate for this story. I also thought Kidman was really good. She takes on a smaller role, but her strong performance brings more to her character than you might expect. But for me Matthew Goode is the real standout. From his first appearance in the cemetery overlooking his brother’s funeral service, Goode maintains an eerie presence. He slithers around the Stoker’s secluded two-story estate channeling his best Joseph Cotton from “Shadow of a Doubt”. I loved what Goode did with the role and for me he helped give the movie the creepy intensity it was shooting for.

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But I think my favorite thing about “Stoker” was the undeniable style of Park Chan-wook. I loved what he was doing with his camera and I never grew tired of his perspectives. There’s such artistry at work as he uses strategic close ups, moving cameras, and specific framings of shots. Chan-Wook also left indelible images carved into my mind. He gives the film a real horror movie feel with chilling shots of things like a crawling spider, a hair on a bar of soap, or a pencil sharpener. He also gives the movie heightened senses particularly in the area of sound. It may be voices, buzzing house flies, or even the crumbling of a boiled egg’s shell. All of this contributes to letting us know everything’s wrong in their world. I mean even the end credits are backwards and scroll down instead of up.

All of the amazing visuals and strong acting really worked for me. But some will assuredly be turned off by the movie’s bloody and violent final act. In a way I can understand why but not necessary due to the blood. I’m just not sure that the ending works that well storywise. That aside, “Stoker” is a strong film, dark and unsettling but still wickedly entertaining. It’s most certainly not a film for everyone. But it should be seen even if only for Goode’s devilishly good performance and the stylistic visionary direction. Lucky for me, I found there to be more to like than just that.

“Safe Haven” – 3 STARS

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There are several things that you automatically expect when your watching any movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. You know you’re going to get an overloaded plot, the characters are going to be bombarded with tragedy, a main character will probably die, and whether its rain, a pond, or the ocean, you’re going to get a lot of scenes involving water. Now the water thing doesn’t bother me. I’m sure there’s a nice little story as to why water is so prominent in these films. But the other stuff along with a history of bad performances have made the other Sparks adaptations almost unbearable to watch. So I guess the question is why on earth would I watch his latest endeavor “Safe Haven”? More importantly, would it be able to avoid the habitual weaknesses of the other movies?

Well let me start off by saying that Sparks almost had me with “Safe Haven”. In fact he came incredibly close. “Safe Haven”a flirts with being a really good movie mainly because it steers clear of those crippling stumbling blocks that killed every other Sparks production. Much of the credit for this goes to Gage Lansky and Dana Stevens. Their screenplay keeps things simple, grounded, and focused, that is right up until the very end. It’s there that the story undermines everything it had done up to that point by tossing in a clunky action sequence and an off-the-wall twist that had me slapping my a forehead.

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Julianne Hough plays Katie, a young woman with a big secret. We first see her in a bus station where she hurriedly hops on a bus heading to Atlanta. Right on her heels is police officer Kevin Tierney (David Lyons) who narrowly misses catching her. Katie flees, in search of a place where she will feel “safe” Officer Tierney issues an all-points bulletin and continues to search for her. We know Katie is involved in something bad but the movie never tells us what it is all at once. Instead we are fed bits of information through a series of flashbacks.

Katie’s bus stops briefly at a sleepy little North Carolina town called Southport that sits at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. She decides to stay. She buys an old fixer-upper house isolated in the woods and lands a low-key job as a waitress in a fish restaurant. She also reluctantly starts making connects in town including catching the eye of the conveniently widowed Alex (Josh Duhamel). It doesn’t take a Rhodes scholar to guess that the two eventually fall for each other. Hough and Duhamel are actually quite good together. Hough is beautiful and fairly believable and her acting was a surprise. She did have some rough patches but overall she was much better than I expected. Duhamel is a very likable actor but I’ve yet to see him really relay emotion. He gives a good enough performance here but it’s nothing that will grab your attention. But the main thing is that they do have a nice chemistry and we get plenty of scenes with these two pretty people together. But you can only run from the law for so long and Katie’s past could eventually destroy her new life.

I was curious to see how director Lasse Hallström was going to handle this movie. He’s got an interesting résumé that includes some really good films such as “Chocolat”, “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”, and last year’s “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”. But he also made the Nicholas Sparks disaster “Dear John”. Well thankfully this is no “Dear John”. Hallström never let’s things get out of control and he’s able to keep his characters entertaining and interesting. He does get close to falling into eye-rolling sappiness at times but he actually succeeds in making this a fairly enjoyable romantic drama, something that can’t be said about the previous Sparks productions.

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Now “Safe Haven” does use some of the standard clichés that you see in a lot of these type of pictures. We get the super cute little kid doing and saying super cute little things and there are certain moments in Katie and Alex’s romance that were taken straight out of the Hollywood handbook on formulaic romance scenes. But I have to say that these things are at a minimum and they never overtake the film. There’s also the water. I mean there’s water everywhere. Of course Alex and Katie have to get caught in a rain storm and there’s a lot of scenes that include the Cape Fear River. There’s even a reoccurring bottled water that has significance. That Nicholas Sparks, he sure loves his water.

So while “Safe Haven” can be a little sappy, a little cliché, and too convenient, those aren’t its biggest offenses. Even with the surprising control and restraint that we see in the majority of the film, the ending blows most of it out of Sparks’ beloved water. There’s an early twist that I actually thought was pretty well done. But it leads to an action sequence that felt terribly out of place. It just suddenly throws too much at you and it felt pretty cheap. But then the story gets back on track with a really touching final sequence. The only problem is the filmmakers don’t leave it alone and they toss in a twist that left me shaking my head. I don’t know, if I watch it again I might feel differently, but it seemed to me that they ruined a really good ending by trying to be too crafty. Sometimes you have to recognize a good thing and let it play out.

So what’s my final take on “Safe Haven”? I’ve slammed every Nicholas Sparks production that I’ve reviewed and I was expecting to do the same here. But as I consider the film as a whole I can’t help but recommend it, even if it’s a slight recommendation. Hough is lovely and Duhamel as likable as always, and even though they’re not the most polished performers, their chemistry sold me. I’m still not one to say I now look forward to Nicholas Sparks movies, but for me this was a step in the right direction.