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My expectations for this movie were very low going in, and I would say that the movie met them. I expected a fun, exotic, exciting adventure, which the movie delivered upon. It is a fairly predictable movie, but always fun to watch Mathew McConaughey play the guy who hasn't grown up along with Kate Hudson playing the lady who wishes he would. Their chemistry is great, and isn't that all you really expect from a movie like this, regardless of plot?
The only thing that didn't fit in the movie was a couple of overly bloody scenes (on an absolute basis the blood was very minor, but the fact that they showed up at all was surprising.)
Not the best movie you will ever see, but will certainly give you a break from all this extreme winter weather we have been having.
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By the time this review is over, I will have spent more time thinking about Fool's Gold than the writers of its script. This...thing...is one of the sloppiest pictures released by a major studio in recent memory. What can you say about a "romance" with no romance, a "comedy" with no laughs, an "adventure" with no excitement? Though I certainly wasn't rubbing my hands together in anticipation walking in to the theater, I thought this would at least succeed at being an enjoyable time waster. "Attractive people wearing few clothes in exotic locales -- I can handle watching that for a few hours," I thought to myself. But I was wrong. So very wrong. The whole affair is about as compelling as a two-hour fart.
I don't ask a great deal from romantic comedies. I don't need every one to be Annie Hall or When Harry Met Sally or Love, Actually. I don't even need them to be particularly good -- I kinda enjoyed The Holiday, for God's sake! Give me a few laughs, appealing leads, a warm squishy feeling, and you've done your job. Plainly, the makers of Fool's Gold did not do their job. Listen, I know Valentine's Day is coming up, so heed this warning -- if you see this crashing bore of a movie on a first date, your relationship is doomed, cursed even. Do not speak on the way home, avoid eye contact, just go your separate ways and don't speak of the evening again.
A relentlessly shirtless and Nickelback-coiffed Matthew McConaughey plays Finn (have you ever met a "Finn?"), a beach bum/treasure hunter obsessed with finding the "Queens Dowry," 40 chests of treasure lost at sea in 1715. His wife Tess (have you ever met a "Tess?"), played by a relentlessly scowling Kate Hudson, wants to divorce him because he's so immature. But despite her hatred for him, they reunite for one last score and I'm dozing off just writing this sentence. I won't waste your time with the details of the plot. The epic ten-minute sequence in which McConaughey and Hudson explain the history of the treasure is so poorly conceived, so talky, so dry, so dull, that I'm fairly certain sitting through it rendered me impotent. I won't subject you to the same fate.
Perhaps realizing the main story was dead in the water, the filmmakers have padded the story with a seemingly endless parade of charmless, pointless supporting players. There's Alexis Dziena (if you saw Broken Flowers, you remember her shocking nude scene) as a giggly Paris Hilton clone. There's her father, Donald Sutherland -- sporting a British accent that would make Keanu Reeves wince. There's The Cosby Show's Malcolm-Jamal Warner, sporting a Jamaican accent that would make Donald Sutherland wince. There's Ray Winstone, who is supposed to be McConaughey's main competition for the treasure, but inexplicably only appears in a few scenes. Want painfully unfunny stereotypes? There's comedian Kevin Hart as a rapper named Bigg Bunny (ha-ha!), and there's Michael Mulheren and Adam LeFevre as a couple of aging-but-sassy homosexual chefs (ho-ho!). This baby's got it all!
The film was directed by Andy Tennant, who also helmed the vastly superior Hitch -- a film that seems like Bringing Up Baby in comparison. Tennant co-wrote the script with John Claflin and Daniel Zelman (writers of Anacondas 2: Hunt for the Blood Orchid -- a film that seems like Jaws in comparison). I refuse to believe that any of these men found one line of dialogue in this script amusing. Comedy writers use the term "placeholder joke" for a line that works for the moment but will need to be punched up later. Fool's Gold is a placeholder movie, waiting for a thousand fixes that never come.
Hudson and McConaughey are attractive, moderately talented people, but they create a gaping black hole of chemistry nothingness here. Hudson repeatedly comments on McConaughey's amazing sexual prowess, but it's hard to believe they've even shook hands before. Watching these two "romance" each other, you'd swear that right before each scene Hudson turned to McConaughey and whispered "I have the worst diarrhea." Then McConaughey responded "You look exactly like my sister." Then director Andy Tennant shouted "Okay, you two both have herpes...and...action!" I've experienced more romantic sizzle with my desk lamp. And I don't even like my desk lamp.
I'd call Fool's Gold the worst movie of the year, and it certainly is, but that really doesn't make as strong a point as I'd like. It's only February after all. So I'll say it's the worst movie in a couple years. Please don't see it. Do something more fun with your time. You know, like jamming a piece of barbed wire into your urethra.
Pretty scenery, though!
another comments:
- I found this review incredibly helpful. It just so happens I was debating what to do tonight: see Fool's Gold or jam a piece of barbwire up my urethra.
Looks like barbwire followed by a trip to the emergency room for me!
- When you're watching a promo that is so unappealing that when a line comes up about the main characters being struck by lightning you automatically respond, "Oh, please -- and can I watch?!", you know you have to stay away. After all, the promo is supposed to make even a bad movie look good; it's only a minute! So I figured this movie must be really bad if they couldn't put together a minute that makes it look OK. But you're right, McConaughey & Hudson just aren't draws for me ... and I remember when he was being pushed as the next big thing.
- Shit my parents are planning on seeing this, need to warn them haha.
It really makes you wonder what the fuck is going through people's heads when coming up with ideas. Then that makes one wonder whats going through the heads of people who greenlight this stuff.
- I totally agree that this was the worst movie I have ever seen. I kept wanting to lean over and ask my fiance if we could leave and just go walk the mall or something! I thought he'd be offended so I suffered through it. There was no action and no romance and it was just as boring as watching ants build a mound. I mean there was only a split second where it shows the side of Matthew's butt. The shot was taken so far away though! Do not waste your time or money on this awful put together show!!
- That review was hilarious - much better, I imagine, than seeing the actual movie.
- Sorry many reviewers don't know a great date movie when they see one. It's not about saving the world, it's about fun, entertainment, adventure, chemistry, and just a good time with someone you care about. Get over yourselves, reveiwers! I'm tired of your holy-er than thou attitudes!!! People! Don't expect to be tossed and turned by the same old deep plot story that everyone is so tired of going to see, and reviewers are so happy run off at the mouth about! This is not "THE KILLING FIELDS!" Stop expecting Armegeddon!
It's just a fun adventure with "not hard to look at" actors, and of course, we can't forget legendary Donald Sutherland, who gives his usual outstanding performance.
Just go and enjoy, people!
- I actually thought this movie was pretty good. Sometimes it got boring especially when they described the treasure. I saw it twice and told my friends to see it to. It might just be because we like corny movies but i found it good.
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Tropical Pursuit of Love, Coins and No Tan Lines
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: February 8, 2008
In “Fool’s Gold” Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, as golden as a pair of rotisserie chickens, squabble and cavort in a tropical paradise. How nice for them, and for those in the audience who want nothing more from a midwinter trip to the movies than to gaze upon the tawny limbs and perfect bellybuttons of the stars.
Not that there isn’t a lot of other stuff going on in “Fool’s Gold,” a hectic action-romance-comedy directed by Andy Tennant from a script credited to him, John Claflin and Daniel Zelman. There is Alexis Dziena’s bellybutton, for instance, winking in solidarity (and perhaps in friendly competition) with Ms. Hudson’s. And if plot is what you want, there is plenty of incident, including underwater fights and high-speed shenanigans involving motor scooters, Jet Skis and prop planes.
There is also quite a crowd of stock supporting characters. I suppose the filmmakers can claim some originality in assembling, within a single movie, a rich old guy in an ascot (Donald Sutherland), a crusty boat captain (Ray Winstone) and a murderous, greedy rap star (Kevin Hart), along with a loving, sharp-tongued gay couple and a pair of hapless criminal minions.
If only this hodgepodge offered more fun and less of the kind of frantic creative desperation that tries to pass itself off as giddy comic exuberance. Mr. McConaughey and Ms. Hudson, who were less than electrifying in “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” appear to be suffering through a class in remedial chemistry, which they barely pass. Their characters, Finn and Tess, are on the verge of divorce.
Finn is a feckless treasure hunter whose irresponsible ways have finally driven Tess, even though she still loves him, to dump him and return to graduate school. First, however, she finds work on a yacht belonging to Nigel Honeycutt (Mr. Sutherland), whose jet-setting daughter, Gemma (Ms. Dziena), drops in for some text messaging and bikini modeling.
For a time “Fool’s Gold” holds out a vague promise of romantic farce, since it seems possible that either Gemma or her dad, or perhaps both, might become an obstacle to Tess and Finn’s inevitable reconciliation. Instead the film stages a melodrama of father-daughter estrangement between Nigel and Gemma and abruptly shelves the dumb bimbo jokes, though not the leering camerawork aimed at Ms. Dziena.
And so the prospect of fireworks between Finn and Tess is quickly dampened, and the movie turns into a dull, noisy pursuit of old Spanish coins, aided by maps and letters and enough pseudohistorical explanation to round out the next episode in the “National Treasure” franchise.
Will Finn and Tess find the treasure before the bad guys? Will they put aside their differences and rekindle their love? Yes to both questions! I haven’t spoiled anything, by the way. But perhaps I’ve saved you some trouble.
“Fool’s Gold” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some violence and sexual situations.
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