MOVIE OF THE WEEK (2/14/13): SAFE HAVEN
KEY CAST MEMBERS: Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, Colbie Smulders, Noah Lomax, Mimi Kirkland, David Lyons and Irene Ziegler
WRITER(S): Leslie Bohem and Dana Stevens (screenplay); Nicholas Sparks (novel)
DIRECTOR: Lasse Hallström
THE PLOT: Ripped from the pages of another Nicholas Sparks (a.k.a. The Notebook guy) novel, Safe Haven stars Julianne Hough as Katie, a young woman who journeys to North Carolina after apparently being involved in some sort of terrible crime. Settling in to a small, rural beachfront community, she takes up a job Mrs. Feldman (Irene Ziegler) gives her at a local restaurant before eventually meeting her new "neighbor" Jo (Cobie Smulders).
Happy to be out in the woods away from her troubles, Katie eventually discovers she has a need for some supplies, which leads her to the shop run by Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widowed store owner raising Lexie (Mimi Kirkland), a precocious young daughter (and the best actor in the movie) and Josh (Noah Lomax), who misses his mom immensely. And after a rough start, Katie and Alex strike up a friendship.
Unfortunately for Katie, Tierney (David Lyons) is determine to find out where the main person of interest in his case is ... Even if that means traveling to North Carolina on his own to find her ...
Happy to be out in the woods away from her troubles, Katie eventually discovers she has a need for some supplies, which leads her to the shop run by Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widowed store owner raising Lexie (Mimi Kirkland), a precocious young daughter (and the best actor in the movie) and Josh (Noah Lomax), who misses his mom immensely. And after a rough start, Katie and Alex strike up a friendship.
Unfortunately for Katie, Tierney (David Lyons) is determine to find out where the main person of interest in his case is ... Even if that means traveling to North Carolina on his own to find her ...
THE TAKE: Safe Haven is a lot of things; unfortunately, none of them are good. It's not for a lack of trying, I guess, by its stars to make something – anything – about the movie enjoyable. Hough is nice enough given her character's bland development, as is Duhamel who attempts to be serviceable as the film's nice guy character, smiling when necessary but ultimately failing to do anything to make you connect with him emotionally. Likewise, Colbie Smulders tries to aptly pass the time, which consists of her smiling and laughing for most of her time in the film.
However, a bunch of smiling, nodding and pretty faces does not a good movie make. For Safe Haven plods – and I mean, plods – along slowly, deliberately and without anything really interesting happening. Put it this way – Safe Haven is like that nice couple you know that you see out at mutual friends parties, but while there's nothing wrong with them, there's nothing right enough about them that makes you want to hang out with them, either. The chemistry between Hough and Duhamel is more like true best friends than romantic, which hurts the main crux (that they are each other's "safe haven") immensely. Alex is the nice guy victim, Katie is the untrusting loner with the dark past ... Why wouldn't they be a match for each other when the film forces it at every turn?
The film plays EVERYTHING safe to the point of just not being interesting. Then again, the horrible caricature of a dirty cop/alcoholic portrayed by David Lyons is pretty ridiculous to the point of being comical. Then again, at least he takes some sort of risk to make the film interesting, even though it does ultimately fail and fail miserably.
Bottom line is, there is nothing in Safe Haven you'll care to remember because the film is about as bland as bland can be. Unless you are the type of person who LOVES any and every romantic drama, you'll be about as bored as bored can be as you watch cliché after romantic cliché roll in front of your eyes. The only saving grace is the film's M. Night Shymalan-style twist at the end, but the journey to get there really isn't worth the wait.
However, a bunch of smiling, nodding and pretty faces does not a good movie make. For Safe Haven plods – and I mean, plods – along slowly, deliberately and without anything really interesting happening. Put it this way – Safe Haven is like that nice couple you know that you see out at mutual friends parties, but while there's nothing wrong with them, there's nothing right enough about them that makes you want to hang out with them, either. The chemistry between Hough and Duhamel is more like true best friends than romantic, which hurts the main crux (that they are each other's "safe haven") immensely. Alex is the nice guy victim, Katie is the untrusting loner with the dark past ... Why wouldn't they be a match for each other when the film forces it at every turn?
The film plays EVERYTHING safe to the point of just not being interesting. Then again, the horrible caricature of a dirty cop/alcoholic portrayed by David Lyons is pretty ridiculous to the point of being comical. Then again, at least he takes some sort of risk to make the film interesting, even though it does ultimately fail and fail miserably.
Bottom line is, there is nothing in Safe Haven you'll care to remember because the film is about as bland as bland can be. Unless you are the type of person who LOVES any and every romantic drama, you'll be about as bored as bored can be as you watch cliché after romantic cliché roll in front of your eyes. The only saving grace is the film's M. Night Shymalan-style twist at the end, but the journey to get there really isn't worth the wait.
PARTING SHOT: A film that ho-hums its way through what could have been an interesting movie, Safe Haven only provides one for die-hard, easy to please fans of its stars or the author of the original novel ... Because there's hardly anything novel about the film itself.
RATING (OUT OF FOUR BUCKETS OF POPCORN):
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