Rating: 
Summary: Best Movie I have seen in awhile
Review: This is a wonderful movie. From the coondog cemetary to the hometown carnival I loved it. Makes me wish I was young and back home in my little southern town.
Rating: 
Summary: A sweet but by the numbers romantic comedy
Review: There is nothing wrong with a film having a predictable plot. After all, in the biggest money making film of all time everybody knew the ship was going to sink. Not that there is anything wrong with surprising the audience (remember when it dawned on your that Julia Roberts did not deserve to get the guy in "My Best Friends Wedding"?). Kenneth Burke defined "form" as the creation of an appetite in the mind of an audience and the satisfying of that appetite. Therefore in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" we know that Toula is going to do the Ugly Duckling bit and live happily ever after. In "Sweet Home Alabama" we know that when Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon) goes home to sweet Alabama to get a divorce from Jake Perry (Josh Lucas) in order to marry John John clone Andrew Hennings (Patrick Dempsey) that it just ain't gonna happen. There is nothing wrong with that. But where "Sweet Home Alabama" fails is in not providing memorable moments of the heroine stopping to smell the magnolias as the movie works to its predictable conclusion.The film begins with a trip down memory lane when young Melanie and Jake shared their first kiss and pledged undying love amidst a lighting strike. This certainly established an expectation on the part of the audience that a second lightning strike was going to play a pivotal role in the film's climax. But that is an appetite that is never satisfied. During the scene where Andrew proposes to Melanie at Tiffany's there are promising signs for the film's prospects in the delighted faces of the people standing behind the counters of diamond rings. It is a lovely little moment that we are allowed to enjoy. But early on we also have the fashion show where Melanie becomes a star and despite the cinematic possibilities inherent in beautiful women wearing gorgeous dresses walking down a runway, the film races through the moment. Instead of showing us that Melanie is a star, the film opts for just telling us she is a star and moves along. The screenplay by C. Jay Cox, based on Douglas J. Eboch's story, does this one pretty much by the numbers. Melanie goes home and shows disdain for everybody and everything until she learns the error of her ways and the lies upon which she has built her new life are all revealed. Melanie is really a good girl deep down in her heart, a fact confirmed in our minds by the fact that both Jake's coon dog and his mom (Jean Smart) disregard her histrionics in favor of sedate total acceptance. The subplot involving Andrew's maniacal mayor mom (Candice Bergen) is just another set of numbers to be played out. True, Andrew does not deserve his fate in this film, but he was pretty much doomed once his mother read the poll results and went ahead with his birth. Ultimately the film comes down to the revelation of Jake's secret. The reason that he never got the divorce from Melanie is that he wanted to prove he was good enough for her. On the one hand, what he came up with was an excellent choice, especially given the premises of the film. But on the other hand Melanie's discovery of the Jake's secret, which could have been the most wonderful moment in the film, goes back to the telling rather than showing. Melanie is given a couple of big clues to help her alone (My better way of doing it? Remember that object in Jake's trailer? It should have been at this place instead). Witherspoon is fine given what she has to work with the script, but Lucas is the one who really shines, which is certainly saying something given his co-star, who is definitely the blonde de jour in American cinema at the moment. Besides, Jean Smart plays the mother of his character and that is always going to be a good sign in most movies. Lucas ends up being the lynchpin of "Sweet Home Alabama," and I shudder to think how low this film could have sunk if he did not provide it with some grounding. The film does little with the once and future happy couple's group of friends, and Mary Kay Place and Fred Ward are wasted as Melanie's parents in their doublewide trailer home. In the end I get the feeling that as soon as the people who made "Sweet Home Alabama" signed Reese Witherspoon to star in the film they stopped working on the script and started counting their profits.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it...
Review: Being from Alabama, this movie really made me giggle. I loved the Southern accents and I love Reese as a Southerner. She really did a great job. It was a cheesy (in a good way) love story with a lot of cute moments that made me smile. My husband even liked it. I only have one complaint...after Reese punched Candice Bergen, did they really have to make her dad say "The South will rise again"? That was so redneck. The alternate ending was a bit depressing. I am glad they used the ending that they did. It's a GREAT flick!
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad
Review: I thought this was a cute movie. Not exactly an Oscar-winner, but we already knew that!
Reese Whitherspoon, newly engaged, leaves her elite life and new fiance in Manhatten to go back home to Alabama to get a divorce from her first husband (her childhood sweet heart).
The longer she's back in Alabama, the more she realizes how much she missed it.
It's cute a movie. Funny moments. Kind of predictable, but definitely worth watching!
Rating:
Summary: Not too sweet
Review: I was looking forward to this movie as I love RW's film "Legally Blonde" but I found it wanting. The acting and sets were great but the story seemed rushed. I didn't feel Reese's old flame did anything throughout the movie that would make her change her mind and want him back. The fashion design job in NY she has would not be very conducive to a long distance relationship. She would have been better served staying single in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet Alabama
Review: This is just your typical love story. Girl falls in love young. Grows up and leaves her first love. Falls in love with a big city hot shot, Comes home one day, tries to deny her heritage, and falls in love all over again with her first "love". It is an all too familiar plot with an all too familiar ending. My wife hates taking me to these kinds of movies because I can tell her the whole thing before the previews are finished. If you are a girl you will like it, if you are a guy you will see it just to make your woman happy. Nuff said.
Rating:
Summary: Okay For a Back-Up...
Review: Okay, yes I am a guy reviewing a romantic comedy. Shame on me. Still, the movie IS a comedy, which I enjoy, so I will plunge ahead anyway, so as to help others in making a decision. Actually, it was somewhat better than I thought, and not nearly as offensive to the "Southern Folk" as one might suspect by looking at the title alone. I looked forward to a few good laughs, but they never came, to my disappointment. However, there were many nice scenes to make one nostalgic for younger days and old friends reluctantly left behind in our pursuit of career and fame. Anyone watching this movie will see a little of yourself in the characters and situations presented, and that aspect saved the movie for me. A bit lacking in laughs, but not at all bad for a night on the couch with popcorn in hand!
Rating:
Summary: Pushaaa no contest
Review: This was definently the best movie I've ever seen. It was cute and funny and I have not met a single sole who doesnt like it. I thought the alternate ending was good but I am happy they kept the one they had. I love Jake's eyes they are so pretty!! This movie was definently an A++ no contest.
Rating:
Summary: Designing a future?
Review: The fashion designer Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon) is unexpectedly proposed to by Andrew Hennings (Patrick Dempsey), who is the most eligible bachelor in New York. Melanie finds herself in a difficult spot, since she is already married to a man who refuses to divorce her. The marriage was a failure that Melanie has put behind her since she moved to New York seven years ago, but now it is about to cause a scandal. In order to prevent this from happening, she goes back to her childhood town in Alabama and attempts to straighten things out. Sweet Home Alabama is a romantic comedy that has its funny and romantic moments, but the film never seems to elevate itself from an average film experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy The Trailer
Review: The trailer made me want to see this movie. It had led me to believe I would be seeing a madcap screwball comedy of the gag-a-minute variety. Sweet Home Alabama is none of the above. It's a standard heartwarmer. The gags, such as they are, could have been focused to better effect. For whatever reason, they weren't, and they may not have been intended to be. Screwball comedies aren't the end-all-be-all. In fact, they're quite superficial... but then so are standard heartwarmers, and they aren't funny. If they didn't want a screwball comedy, they shouldn't have advertised one, that's all. For what it's worth, Reese Witherspoon does a great job. Her character is very like someone I know, and I'm sure convinced. It's a pity here effort is lost in a cliché. Even more's the pity, cuz if they got the guy who edited the trailer to edit the movie, they might have had something.
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