Home :: DVD :: Drama :: General  

African American Drama
Classics
Crime & Criminals
Cult Classics
Family Life
Gay & Lesbian
General

Love & Romance
Military & War
Murder & Mayhem
Period Piece
Religion
Sports
Television
Message in a Bottle

Message in a Bottle

List Price: $14.96
Your Price: $9.08
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 .. 12 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What we all should experience.
Review: This movie is one of Costner's best. Not that any of them are any less than excellent. The breath-taking scenery, along with Costner himself make it a must see picture. The letters are exquisitely well written and it simply reminds us all of the kind of intensely, intimate and passionate love that we all deserve to have in our lives. Kevin Costner is a man's man and a woman's as well. To have the experience of a relationship like that is definitely worth the time, effort,laughter, tears and most importantly the knowledge that you have the right person in your life.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Some fair parts individually, but they just don't add up.
Review: It wasn't a total loss. There were definitely some things to enjoy in this film. I always enjoy beautiful scenery and the supporting roles were all finely done, especially Savage, Newman and Coltrane. But while Robin Wright was good, and Costner was fair, I saw no believable chemistry between them.

For me, the most enjoyable part of the movie was watching the personal growth of Robin Wright's character, although it did require some suspension of disbelief that Costner's character was a major component of that growth.

But it was the ending that left me furious, and horribly disappointed. I don't require the ending to be a happy one, but this tragedy felt entirely artificial. I can only hope that the book made it more believable than the film did. How on Earth could someone have the presence of mind to throw a line to drowning people, haul them in, and then immediately jump into the same churning ocean WITHOUT TAKING THAT LINE WITH HIM! Stupid is far to generous a term for such idiocy. I would have thought he must be suicidal except that he wrote that last message that made it clear he finally had something to live for. Oh the (contrived) irony...
A not quite three star film, with a few four star moments, and a zero star ending.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The book was better
Review: Message in a bottle is a story of love and fate. This movie took one of Nicholas Sparks's wonderful book and turned it all around. If you have seen the movie before reading the book and liked it. You should read the book then you'll see what I mean by this is a terrible movie!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Lost at Sea
Review: Kevin Costner and Robin Wright Penn star in this stomach-turning film based on Nicholas Sparks's sappy novel. Penn plays a Chicago Tribune researcher who finds the title "character" on a beach. After her boss publishes the mushy contents, other messages appear. Penn and her associates track down the cheesy Romeo, and she travels to his home on the North Carolina's Outer Banks. Of course, she does not reveal the reason for her visit, and falls in love with him. You can imagine the dramatic possibilities that follow. In fact, you've seen them before.

Almost nothing in the film rings true. Every twist is predictable and unbelievable, devised only to tug at the heartstrings. Could Costner truly be this obsessed with his dead wife and still love Penn- a woman with whom he has nothing in common? Possibly, but the filmmakers make no effort to show what draws these two very different people to one another. Instead, their attraction is assumed. Without it there's no film. The idea that anyone, let alone Penn's educated newspaper-woman, would even consider speaking with Costner's brooding, troubled, and occasionally violent boat-builder strains credibility. Instead of a man with a romantic nature, we get a man caught between obsessive-compulsive disorder and a coma.

Only the supporting players survive with their dignity intact. Robbie Coltrane does a nice turn as Penn's boss, and Paul Newman triumphs over the material as Costner's crusty father.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No chemistry between Wright-Penn or Costner
Review: The two stars had about as much chemistry as flat Coke and water.
If you want to see a love story that positively smolders, don't watch this one. I found myself wishing it would get over. The only saving grace was Paul Newman. Read the book. Let's hope Nicholas Sparks' book THE NOTEBOOK gets more credibility than this one..The bottom line here is: HO HUM

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great Story, but.......
Review: I was told by alot of friends that I should read the book
"Message in a Bottle". I said sure why not, I could use a good read. People were literally raving about this book. So, I read it in record time. I could not put down this book!!!!!!!
Nicholas Sparks does an EXCELLENT job with the story. And I haven't mentioned what I thought of the movie because it didn't even come close to the book in any aspect. I guess I should have watched the movie first...but even if you have seen the movie, I highly recommend that you read the book! It will make you laugh, cry and love such a great love story!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Evil movie.
Review: This is an evil, evil movie. I sat through over two hours of dull, psuedo romantic crud only to encounter this vile, wretched, tacked on ending. What a load!
Okay, I admit, the two lead characters are attractive and likeable. Its watchable, for the most part. But the vile, putrescent ending ruins everything. This movie exists only for fans of true sappiness. I still feel dirty. Think I'll take another shower.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Touching Adult Love Story.
Review: ********************NO SPOILERS HERE***********************.

This film tells a very good story of love, fate, loss, and hope.
It deals with the complexity of grief very well and anyone who has loved will empathize with the 2 central characters in this film. You generally give a toss for the characters, so heres the story in a nutshell.

Theresa (played by Robin Wright Penn ) is out jogging on a beach one morning and finds a bottle embedded in the sand, in the bottle contains a heartbreaking letter of someone who knows his partner is about to die, Theresa is so infatuated by the heart wrenching contents and poetry in the mans letter she dedicates all her time into finding him and when she does a love story develops and if I go any further I'll spoil it for you.

Now I'm a man and love Boys movies and hadnt cried in 3 years until I watched this film , its THE most beautiful coherent and honest love story told, without pulling any punches, no meaningless sweaty love scenes or whipped cream flying around, just an epic tale of romance , great characterizations, consumate acting from Kevin Costner, Paul Newman (very underplayed and moving) and Robin Penn all very good.

If you like films in the shape of 'City Of Angels', 'The English Patient' , 'Beaches', Terms Of Endearment etc this will be in your collection and the soundtrack is also awesome check reviews for that too.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Have a gratuitious death scene to invoke emotion
Review: Let's see. A romantic drama about a woman who searches for the man who writes beautiful missives to his dead wife.

How powerful are these words? Princess Bride's journalist character travels down south to visit the man who wrote this beautiful letter in a bottle to his wife. She's intrigued by him. By his writing. How can a man love so much! She MUST know this man!

Until she sees that the man who wrote this stuff is a balding, overweight guy. Well, maybe that letter wasn't THAT great. Maybe he copied it out of a book anyways. Besides that, it's silly trying to find out about a guy who wrote something very private. I think I'll go home....WAIT A MINUTE. Kevin Coster is the man that wrote that letter...not the average looking, everyday fellow that nobody would be attracted to! NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT, that letter really WAS intriguing! I MUST find out more about this guy!
Gimme a break. Costner's a hottie to Wright, especially since her mysteriously doesn't say much. She'll learn later that he doesn't say much because he hasn't much to say. With memorable pick up lines such as "Do you like meat", Costner must've been advised to keep his yap shut as much as possible...and it was brilliant advice. In fact, the more he talks in this movie, the more he puts his foot in his mouth. Wright touches dead wife's shoe (Costner leaves a room in his house untouched as a tribute to his dead wife), and that makes Costner FREAK. Costner actually spends the whole movie being quiet, giving mixed signals, pining for his dead wife, and acting like an extreme introvert. BUT THIS DOESN'T TURN OFF WRIGHT in the LEAST! Nope. She invites him to Chicago, has a sex scene with him (I guess she's loose, but it doesn't add to the romance of the movie, and seems like it doesn't really fit in the movie).

Romantic dramas work with solid dialogue. There was no banter between Costner and Wright in this movie. Instead, we watch them spending time with each other, with music playing in the background in place of words, showing us that the two are having wonderful conversations, without us actually hearing what they have to say to each other. Maybe it should be assumed that they have a lot to say to each other, but why would I assume that? In the parts of the movie where they have conversation, it's awkward and the dialogue is, well, dull.

The romance is unbelievable. What we have here is Wright's character acting like a desparate woman who wants a good lookin' man in her life so bad that she'll ignore obvious signs that should make her run away. Fine, if you don't sugarcoat it into looking like a classic romance between two people that naturally go together like ham n eggs. They don't. And again, NO CLEVER DIALOGUE IN THE WHOLE MOVIE. I watched it in the theatre, and thought the sex scene was a half-bleep attempt at forcing a romance in our heads. Sex doesn't assume romance. It assumes sex when there's nothing else going for this couple.

I've beaten that to death. Paul Newman overacted so bad it was embarrassing. I blame the director for this one. Newman knows how to act.

The death scene looked like an insurance policy. As if the movie wasn't tragic and sad enough, hey let's have a death scene to jerk some tears. I know. It's what the book called for. Still, make us care about the characters more before you throw in a death scene. I didn't care. I was insulted. A man's family goes out for a pleasure sail in stormy waters. Makes sense. I'd take my wife and small child on a pleasure sail in the middle of a storm. Yes, a sailor gets storm warnings before he leaves dock or he gets it from the radio.
So everybody capsizes, and Coster saves the family instead of the husband, who waits on Costner's boat for Costner to save his family. I guess the husband, seeing his family in danger, was more concerned with preventing pneumonia. Gimme a break.

If you check your brain at the door, you might not find this movie to be horrible. I still don't see how you manage to find it entertaining, though. And I like Costner and Wright!

This movie stinks eggs.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: So overrated
Review: Kevin Costner is the worst actor my eyes have ever witnessed in my life. What a crock he is. All his movies are the exact same. He always plays this tortured man who is hard to get to and has a past, but the love a woman teaches him to open up and he becomes a better man. This movie is no exception. It is just like all his other movies, and I think his claim to fame is that people find him attractive, although they must be blind or stupid to think that. Acting abilities? I didn't know grunting and murmuring counted as acting. He coulnd't act his way out of a bottle. On top of that, this movie has one of the worst endings, for a "love story" and I just think it would be wise to not pay any attention to this, or any other movie by him, they are all the same, just with different titles.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 .. 12 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates