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Abandon (Widescreen Edition)

Abandon (Widescreen Edition)

List Price: $9.99
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: worse then I've expected
Review: The trailers make this film a chilling thriller with some cool twists but really it is a slow moving piece of junk. The characters, Katie and Embry, are mediocure and poorly used. The screenplay was a fluke! I mean, who wrote it? Most of the flashbacks that Katie recives don't even make sense--dont fit into the movie at all. And the so called stalker-dead boyfriend does not even do his role of 'scaring' the audience. We, the audience, were supposed to be 'moved' but this film doesnt deliver. All razzle, no dazzle. What a waste of 90 min.

Note that the ending of the movie will shock you beyond belief. You will NOT expect it at all. I say that it somehow ' saved' the film, but it was a poor save nonetheless. Watch at your own risk.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I fell asleep watching it...
Review: ... when I woke up at the end, I found out the ending from my bf that it is just as I predicted midway through the story. No mystery at all, very predictable, slow and boring.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Boring!
Review: I'm not a person that is easily bored but I could not wait until this movie was over. The only reason I continued to watch it was just because I wanted to see the end (which, by the way) was pretty predictable. I didn't watch it at the theater and I didn't rent it either. It just happened to be on one day and that is why I even started watching it. Final verdict: If you're curious to watch it, just wait until it's on TV but don't spend money on it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What a boring movie
Review: This movie is so boring I can't even really put it into words. When they kept switching to the scene where shes in the snow or something I thought I was gonna fall asleep I swear to God. The ending is the only thing that saved this movie from a horrible review. But still, I dont reccomend this. It's not scary at all and there's no scenes that even make you jump. None of my friends like this movie, and I haven't seen too many good reviews on it, so it's not going to do very well.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Abandon? Sure I Do. Too many Psychology, Too Thin Mystery
Review: Doing many job interviews, finishing your thesis, and waiting for the upcoming graduation. At least "Abandon" succeeds in presenting credible characters facing the end of their days in university, and their nervous and unstable mental conditions. The problem is, the central plot is not about them.

Katie Holmes plays Katie Burke, intelligent (and a little bit icy) student preparing for the unnerving job interview with the first-rate company. But what is more unnerving for her is the loss of her boyfriend Embry (Charlie Hunnham, "Nicholas Nickleby), who has been missing for the last two years, and nobody knows whether he is dead or alive.

Before her, a handsome police detective (Benjamin Bratt) appears, who is trying to locate Embry. While trying to forget all about her past, and seeing the possibility of new love in front of her, Katie still cannot help daydreaming about her lost love. And it seems Embry also wants to come back since she keeps on 'seeing' him on campus or in her room. But is she just dreaming, or what?

The premise is interesting, but the result is not. We have little to find or detect from the beginning, and on the way the film starts to act as if it's not a thriller. Without occasional episodes (like the 'eyes' staring Katie), you forget this is supposed to be a thriller. I actually began to think that I was mistaken in supposing it's a thriller. It is. The thing is, it is done with a too thin material to make a chilling thriller.

The chacaters are interesting, all of them being the ones you know you see around you. Melanie Lynskey and Zooey Deschanel give us precious support, but their characters have nothing to do with the central plot. Their credible performance only enhances the cold atmosphere of the film, which grows more and more pretentious as it goes on.

Academy-winner for the adaptaion for "Traffic," Stephen Gaghan seems interested in multi-layered script. That is nice as long as you get an interesting story, interesting enough for us to care the incidents and characters in the story. There are many layers here, among which nothing sunstantial can be found.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Watch before an interview
Review: The interview portion of Holmes' character in the movie would be a great watch and example for any college/grad student interviewing with big firms.

Unusually predictable for a thriller. Maybe because plot devices have been seen elsewhere and done first or better.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: ABANDON this movie with all the possible means
Review: It was on of the very rare instances that i watch a movie that i almost don't know anything about , and for Abandon i have only heared it was an EDGY thriller , i have put the DVD into the DVD player wishing to see this SUPPOSED edgy thriller and here what i have seen.

Katie Holmes plays a senior at a respectable College who has lost her boyfriend Embry (Charlie Hunnam) who has been absent for two years ,she is under a great pressure on completing her thesis when the mysterious disappearance of her lost boyfriend starts to chew on her nerves , and things starts to get more complicated when the detective Wade (Benjamin Bratt) begins his investigations on the disappearance .

The above plot summary can may sounds promising for some kind of stereotype thriller and that would have been may be satisfactory for some viewers , but actually Abandon didn't even reach this level , the movie is cursed by three huge flaws , the first one is the Screenplay which didn't do it's job for capturing the viewer's attention and creating the haunting atmosphere required for this movie , some characters motivation are not clear and not explainable at all ,including the good twist at the end of the movie which really gave a few refreshing moments but didn't help the movie itself much , also the movie's pace was very strange and was affected by the second flaw which is the editing of this movie , the editing actually was miss done , cutting at strange moments and doing three separate paths for the events needed more skillful editing , only one or two jumping scenes were served by the editing , the third flaw is the miss casting which resulted in casting extremely two unsuitable actors for two rules in this movie , and I am talking here about the Detective role played by Benjamin Bratt who looks convincing in himself as an actor but he really wasn't convincing at all in the Detective's role , giving strange starings and unenthuasim performance in the very wrong places , the second mistake in casting came in the very irritating Charlie Hunnam , the problem about him was that he has been put in a role that requires some one with a haunting charisma (which he lacks completely , not the haunting charisma only but the acting charisma at well) , only Katie Holmes was great in her role but without any use because the movie itself didn't help her .

Director Stephen Gaghan tried to create a semi spooky atmosphere for his movie , he seems obsessed with Steven Soderberg's style of directing and he tried to immitate it with the same shuddering distant shots he used ( very obvious in the bedroom scene between Holmes and Bratt) but his immitation was simply void , also the movie is filled with some beautiful shots and somehow good musical score , but all of these didn't help to cure it's curses .

DVD FEATURES: the usual commentary from the director and the cinematographer Matthew Libatique , the usual making of , and some extended and deleted scenes with optional director's commentary with some unnecessary poorly edited scenes that actually would have made things worse if it's included in the movie , theatrical trailer for Abandon and (The Four Feathers) , so it's the usual special features , i hope they don't lose their minds and release a special edition or something like that because i think that no one is going to buy it .

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I have seen worse films ...
Review: ... Having said that, "Abandon" is not a great movie. It is an okay movie if you just want to pass two hours, but no more than that. There is no suspense ... I easily get scared, but I watched this movie alone and in the middle of the night yet I wasn't one bit scared. For a thriller, that is a bit disappointing! Even when looked at as a psychological thriller the film doesn't really deliver.

The script isn't well written ... a lot of scenes don't make sense ... there is a girl who keeps talking in cryptic messages as if she knew exactly what happened to Embry (the missing student), but we never learn whether she really did know ... another student goes missing and everybody is worried (there is a scene where his parents are at a restaurant with Katie, the main character, and ask her if she knows where he might be) yet he later re-appears and no mention of where he was (or even that he was gone) is made. Odd, to say the least! Characters keep saying things that have no relevance to what is happening in the movie, and the plot is entirely predictable! You can literally tell what a character is going to do before he/she does it!!!

The acting is okay ... Benjamin Bratt gives a solid performance and manages to make his character likable and interesting; Charlie Hunnam is brilliant as the young eccentric composer Embry; the only one who doesn't seem to feel comfortable with her character at all is Katie Holmes ... her acting in this movie is mediocre, and she doesn't fit the part at all!!! Why she was cast in this movie is beyond me ...!

There are no suspense-elements in this movie, and the surprise-ending is, well, not very surprising. I won't spoil it for you, but you will figure it out halfway through the movie! So, all in all, if you don't mind that the story develops very slowly, and that some things don't add up, then you might like this film! As I have said, I have seen far worse films ...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Katie Holmes character lifeless, not interesting...
Review: The acting performances here are really mediocre (bad) which spoils the whole movie regardless of story. The photo was good.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Abandon : Is it worth it ?
Review: Abandon is a spicy little film that was brushed aside in theaters. But I think this movie had alot going for it. It was so un-like the clique teen movies and tryed to break into something new. The thing about this movie is that I am not sure if I like it or not. The plot is great with a twist its just that I think this film could have been made tighter and seeping with tension. In comparsion with the traitor, I think it has alot more moments that were cut from the final product that could have made it better. But I think everyone should give it a try because it is a good entertaining movie. There is this one scene called "strobing" I am totally in love with. Pay attention to this scene because there is alot of clues in it. Try it you may like it


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