Movie Review: Holiday In The Wild (2019)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Ernie Barbarash  

Starring: Rob Lowe, Kristin Davis  

Running Time: 86 minutes  

Synopsis: Immediately after her son heads off to college, wealthy New Yorker Kate Conrad (Kristin Davis) is shocked when her businessman husband announces the end of their marriage and also departs. She sets off alone to a Zambia safari vacation, where she meets hunky and eligible small plane pilot Derek Hollistan (Rob Lowe), who also works at an elephant sanctuary. Kate has training as a veterinarian and decides to stay at the sanctuary to help care for the elephants. A thorny romance blossoms with Derek as Christmas approaches

What Works Well: Some of the African scenery is pleasant, and the elephants are adorable.

What Does Not Work As Well: A nauseating Hallmark-level movie set in Africa, wedging-in a Christmas theme because this is what Hallmark-type movies do. The human actors are embarrassed by the talented elephants, the writing is atrocious, all the dramatic moments are contrived, key secondary characters are barely defined beyond "bad husband" and "lusty vamp" and then just disappear, and the on-the-rails plot never deviates from utter predictability.

Key Quote:

Derek (referring to a buffalo): Some people say it's the most dangerous animal out here. But it's not.

Kate: What IS?

Derek: We are.

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Movie Review: Couples Retreat (2009)

Four couples head for a vacation resort specializing in relationship therapy and mending; they discover more about themselves than they cared to know. Couples Retreat is a generally enjoyable modern couplehood comedy, sabotaged by an ending that is in equal measures lame and rushed.

Dave (Vince Vaughn) and his wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman) seem to have a steady marriage, but they discover that they are living almost separate lives. Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) have long since stopped being intimate, and generally cannot stand being with each other. Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are ready to get a divorce, their marriage strained to the breaking point by their inability to conceive. And Shane (Faizon Love) recently did divorce after a long marriage, and is in a new relationship with a 20 year old from an entirely different generation.

Monsieur Marcel is the self-appointed relationship guru at the Eden resort, and Jean Reno has a lot of fun taking the role way over the top. He is helped by Peter Serafinowicz as the uppity British resort manager whose main function is to irritate the men, and Carlos Ponce as the drippy yoga instructor with the beefcake pin-up body whose main function is to tantalize the women.

After a patient build-up to flesh out the characters and a meaty middle to highlight the difficulties in each relationship, the film falls apart in its final few minutes, with a poorly planned and badly executed scramble to provide happy endings for everyone. Any accumulated good-will towards meaningful relationship examination is squandered in an overdose of sugar to satisfy Hollywood's obese relationship with cheerful wrap-ups, no matter how grotesque.

Nevertheless, Couples Retreat, filmed mostly in Bora Bora, benefits from some terrific postcard-quality resort locations, and looks as lush as any dream or imagined vacation. The four couples and the actors portraying them are close enough to real, with believable eccentricities to maintain touch with authenticity. There are good comic moments, some witty dialogue, and a refreshing avoidance of the worst cliches, until the very end.

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Film Review: Sex and the City (2008)

It's four years later. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) has settled into a relationship with Big (Chris Noth), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has settled into life in Brooklyn, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) has settled into the role of wife and mother, and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has settled in LA, managing the career of her long-term lover.

None of this settling is without troubles brewing beneath the surface, as Carrie is longing for the re-assurance of marriage, Miranda has little time for wifely duties, Charlotte is about to receive a surprise and Samantha is gradually getting resentful that her life is not revolving around her.

And so we are off on a two-hour adventure with the ladies who forever transformed television, as they tackle life's latest challenges, this time on the big screen, dressed from head to toe in the latest designer clothes and accessories, visiting the trendiest restaurants, and in Samantha's case, seemingly spending every other day jetting from LA to New York and back.

There are no disappointments here for fans of the series. There is fashion, fashion, and more fashion, everything from out-there everyday outfits to wedding dresses (an excuse is found for a wedding dress photo-shoot), to haute couture (an excuse is found to attend a fashion show) to the latest designer shoes (an excuse is found for a pair of shoes to play a role in the storyline) to the latest designer handbags (yes, another role in the script is found for a handbag). Not an opportunity is missed to show a designer label, and no less is expected.

There are many gab-sessions over many meals and (mostly) many drinks. The full supporting cast from the series is back, and there is the welcome addition of Jennifer Hudson (of Dreamgirls and American Idol fame) as Carrie's new assistant.

What about the Sex, and the City? Plenty of both. Sex is near the core of the issues that Miranda and Samantha have to deal with, and as an added bonus, Samantha finds herself living next to a hunk who is always either (a) naked; (b) getting naked; or (c) naked and having wild passionate sex, with at least one partner. It's mostly (c), actually. As for the City, although the plot finds an excuse for a quick interlude at a five-star Mexico resort, and there are several scenes at Samantha's dreamy LA beach house, New York remains very much the fifth member of the group. Key locations that play a part in the film include the public library, the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, many restaurants, a luxurious penthouse apartment, and even City Hall.

The friendships, the fights, the misunderstandings, the make-up sessions, and the comedy are all here, appropriately proportioned to the big-screen experience, and as usual with Love being the emotion at the core of everything. Searching for it, finding it, being afraid to lose it, and trusting in it. It's also a nice touch for one of the other central themes of the movie to be the age of the central characters, now in their 40's, and a bridge is built to the next generation in their 20-somethings through Hudson's character.

It is rare for a TV series to translate so well to the big screen, but Sex and the City succeeds without the slightest stumble. It is highly recommended, of course for all women, and for all men who want to try and understand them.

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