America's Sweethearts | | Cast : | Julia Roberts, John Cusack | | Director : | Joe Roth | | Studio : | Columbia Tri-Star | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | July 20, 2001 | | DVD Released Date : | February 04, 2003 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 29, 2005 | | Summary | Funny, Entertaining, Perfect! | Content
 | Catherine Zeta-Jones delivers an amazing performance (as usual)! The film is pretty easy to follow, but still manages to be entertaining enough to make you wanna watch it again. If you're anything like me, once it's in the dvd player, it doesn't leave for a few days!! :) |
| Rating | | | Date | May 01, 2005 | | Summary | America's hottest couple just got hotter | Content
| I'm afraid I don't understand all the bad reviews this movie has gotten. America's Sweethearts is not your everday romance. Where John Cusack is trying to get over the infidility of his ex wife and coworker, while realizing that he has been harboring feelings for her sister. Who has loved him all her life, but was left in the shadow and wake of her star sister.
Its a movie of finding your true self, and that love if looked for can heal even the most despairing of hearts. In a comical way, having Billy Crystal as Cupid, the man who only wanted to make the couple famous, and ended up giving John Cusack the world.
This was a wonderful movie, romantic, sweet and comical. If you love Billy Crystal, John Cusack or Julia Roberts this will be sure to please. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 12, 2005 | | Summary | Uggggghhhhhh! | Content
| Gwen Harrison and Eddie Thomas (Catherine Zeta-Jones and John Cusack) are famous actors who are married to each other and also have made nine films together. Six of those films grossed over $100 million, so when they break up, all of their fans are heartbroken. Eddie is very distraught and turns to a guru (Alan Arkin) for help. Gwen turns to a new boyfriend (Hank Azaria), a Spaniard looking to break into the business big time. But Gwen's last two films didn't do well, so the studio is even more anxious to get Gwen and Eddie together to promote the last film they made together, `Time Over Time'. The studio chief (Stanley Tucci) calls in the only man he knows who can pulls this off, Lee (Billy Crystal). Lee, the recently fired studio publicist. Lee knows that there is only one person who can help him, Kiki (Julia Roberts), Gwen's sister and assistant. Lee immediately sets up a junket in a new resort outside of Las Vegas.
"America's Sweethearts" is the latest film directed by Joe Roth. Roth directed a few mediocre films (among them `Coupe de Vile') and then started his own film production company. For a few years, he was the head of Disney Studios and now he has started another production company called "Revolution Studios". His new company has attracted a lot of top-name talent. Roth, for some reason, decided to direct this film based on a screenplay by Crystal and Peter Tolan. They also wrote "Analyze This". The film has a lot of good-sounding things going for it. Great cast (for the most part). Great premise. Promising screenwriters. But why does it feel like a cheap television movie? I have to place most of the blame for this on Roth's shoulders. The direction is so bland it just reeks of television movie of the week. Nothing inspires the viewer.
Another element of this television mow syndrome is the music. Music is played over everything. Many pop songs are played over parts of scenes, into the beginning of the next scene. Usually music is included in a film to cue the audience's emotions, but if a song is playing over two scenes, how is that supposed to work?
The story leads up to a screening of the last film Eddie and Gwen made. The director (Christopher Walken) has ideas of his own and shows a film that he created. The film is not funny. The buildup leads to nothing, creating an extremely unfunny climax.
Julia Roberts is obviously the star of the film and her role is pleasant, but not great. As Kiki, she plays her sister's handmaiden. In a few brief flashbacks, we see Kiki as an overweight woman. These scenes had the promise of delivering something that Julia's fans could remember, but they are all too brief. Julia is a mega-star and can't spend a lot of screen time in a fat suit. Her relationship with John Cusack is slightly interesting to watch, but I never got the feeling that they were madly in love. Shouldn't they have been madly in love? It is a romance after all.
Billy Crystal has a few funny lines, but they have the feel of ancient history to them. Even the most novice person has some knowledge of how the studios and Hollywood work. The jokes had little originality to them.
Catherine Zeta- Jones is just awful. Every single line sounds like it is simply being spoken by Catherine Zeta- Jones. The only time she even appears to be attempting a character is when Gwen is acting especially shallow or callous. Gwen is an unlikable person, but Zeta- Jones doesn't take this to a new level. We have seen this character a million times before and with more interesting results.
John Cusack plays Eddie Thomas. Eddie is a confused man and this makes his character more interesting, but I just didn't believe that he was ever in love with either Gwen or Kiki. John Cusack is capable of such better work.
Christopher Walken, Stanley Tucci, Seth Green and Alan Arkin pop up for various cameos, and these generate a few chuckles, but overall, they are completely forgotten by the time the film ends.
"America's Sweethearts" is a film that is so calculated that it makes me uneasy. The subject matter is meant to be cute, to appeal to as many people as possible. For this reason, they have to shy away from anything resembling reality in the relationships. People in Peoria might object if Julia Roberts looks fat, or if they actually have a fight with some substance, or if anything appeared to have an `edge' to it.
"America's Sweethearts" is best viewed on Fox, when it appears during the Spring of 2002. This way, you can view the film in the medium best suited for it, as a television movie of the week.
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| Rating | | | Date | March 24, 2005 | | Summary | Carboard characters and flat attempts at jokes. | Content
| You would think that a movie with such a star studded cast would have some redeeming qualities but this one does not. The characters are flat and provide no reason for the audience to become emotionally attached. Zeta-Jones self centered starlet character is terrible and drab, John Cusacks depressed and lonely character is unbelievable and impossible to become attached to, Billy Crystal's press agent who tries to please everyone character is not funny nore engaging and Julia Robert's character seems to only be present because she has a big smile. The high point, if you can call it that is Hank Azaria's foreign lover character. His character is horribly stereotypical yet at least he does a bit of acting by talking in an accent (even if the accent is overdone). Even Christopher Walken, who is good in just about anything is lost in this movie. His small role of movie maker doesn't even make any sense - there is nothing at all in the movie that gives hints to the ending in which Walken's character plays a large role.
The main point of the movie - will Zeta-Jone's character and John Cusack's character get back together? - is completely lost because they simply have no amount of chemistry together on screen. Their acting is completely flat.
This movie is disappointing even when compared to all the other bad romantic comedies out there.
One last note - the running Doberman gag would maybe be funny and appropriate to third graders if it weren't for the fact that Crystal's character appears to enjoy being licked in the crotch by a dog. He even tells the dog where to lick. That's not funny - it's just disturbing. |
| Rating | | | Date | January 12, 2005 | | Summary | A waste of some good talent! | Content
| America's Sweethearts borrows a leaf from Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's infamous break-up, not to mention stealing the basic plot from Singing In The Rain. Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) and Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) are famous actors who were married to each other. They have starred as romantic couples in numerous successful movies (incidentally, the film opens with "excerpts" from these movies, and they appear to be spoofs of scenes from real films such as the New York autumn walk in the park scene from When Harry Met Sally, Trinity waking up Neo with a kiss in The Matrix, etc.).
However, they have now broken up and are not doing too well alone. Eddie is holed up in some new age recovery clinic, and has been legally restrained from approaching Gwen, due to an unfortunate incident involving Eddie riding a bike straight into a restaurant where Gwen was dining along with her new Spanish lover Hector (Hank Azaria). By the way, the scene of Eddie in the rain just before he gets on the bike looks like it's a spoof of Bladerunner. If you are starting to get the impression this film contains a lot of spoofs of other films then you are correct.
Gwen, on the other hand, has been making several movies since the break-up which have all bombed at the box office. She goes on the Larry King Live talkback show, and the audience keep ringing to tell her they wish she and Eddie would get back together again.
So, enter Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal), studio publicist extraordinaire, except he's just been fired by the studio head Dave Kingman (Stanley Tucci). He is busy packing up and handing his role to apprentice successor Danny Wax (Seth Green), when Kingman abruptly begs him to come back.
Reclusive eccentric director Hal Weidmann (Christopher Walken) is holding the final print of his latest film ("Time Over Time") hostage and refuses to show it to anyone before the press junket promoting the film. This film also happens to be the last film starring Eddie and Gwen prior to their break-up, so needless to say Kingman desperately wants it at any cost.
Lee's job is to organise the press junket and to cover up the fact that the film is missing and no one knows what it's like. He gets bonus points if he can somehow convince the public that Eddie and Gwen are getting back together again, or at least thinking about it.
He enlists the help of Gwen's sister Kiki (Julia Roberts) who is Gwen's downtrodden much abused "assistant" as well as her sister. He manage to get them to agree to show up at the press junket, and he organises a set of "distractions" to keep the press occupied until the film arrives.
Will Eddie and Gwen actually get back together again? Or will Eddie fall for Kiki? And, why is Weidmann so mysteriously coy about the new film?
Given that this film is co-written and co-produced by Billy Crystal (who is obviously cashing in on his experience hosting one Grammy awards night after another), as well as featuring a star-studded cast, it's quite surprising how disappointing the film really is. The laughs are few and far in between, and most of the situations look awkward and contrived, not to mention boring in places. Although the film has a few twists, the ending is pretty obvious. Verdict? A missed opportunity and a waste of some good talent
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