Listen, I can't really throw stones. Do you know how many movies with absurd plots and paper thin scripts I've sat through smirking, simply because it had spaceships or time machines? That's because Sci-Fi is my bag. So if hotel lobbies and evening gowns are your thing, then buy your tickets now for The Tourist. My mother is going to love this movie.
Objectively, it is impossible to call it good. The third act twist is so far-fetched I felt I needed to check the theater for hidden cameras to see if we were being punk'd. I can't wait to hear the simultaneous slaps of the forehead when this plays for a general audience.
It's not just that the ending that is poor - it is the general laziness of the script. The Tourist doubles down on the mere fact that seeing Angelina Jolie boat through Venice in couture is enough to make a good movie. For me, it isn't. The set-up is bland, the scene work between Jolie and Johnny Depp is merely okay, and the dumbest cop in Europe, Paul Bettany, has nothing to do but gasp.
All that star power (and a director whose previous, Academy Award winning film, The Lives of Others, is magnificent) and this absurd, phony story is what they come up with? What a waste!
Depp, amusing as the American goofball on holiday, is the only one playing the movie for laughs. Someone seems to have misplaced an email, because the other 99% of the picture is played straight. Whereas Knight and Day and Duplicity are recent, good examples of the "light Hitchcock" adventure, The Tourist just plays like an out of tune orchestra.
Real pretty to look at, though.
