Review: Water for Elephants

Review: Water for Elephants

Rating: *

Nonna's Rating: #

Rotten Tomatoes: 60%

Audience: 78%

A true waste of time. A mess of a movie. And I've never read the book, so I'm not making an unfair comparison. A preposterous plot with holes you could lead an elephant through. Stereotypical characters overdrawn and overwrought. Christopher Waltz, who was so brilliant in The Inglorious Basterds, seems to have taken a course from the Ricardo Montalban School of Overacting. His bombastic posturing and swaggering can only be the result of very poor direction by Francis Lawrence -- which is very much in evidence in every scene in this film. Reese Witherspoon does manage to stay on an even keel and delivers a competent performance, all the while remaining luminously beautiful. But only Rosie the Elephant, played by Tai, gives a performance worthy of any kind of award. Robert Pattinson is the big problem. He generates no heat and even less emotion-- with a resulting complete lack of chemistry between him and Witherspoon. The story is on a road to nowhere. Watch it on cable if you have to, but my advice is to skip it.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it