BEFORE: I know, I know, this is regarded as one of the biggest box-office bombs in history. But it can't be all THAT bad, can it? Famous last words, I suppose. But again, I'll suffer through just about anything at this point, provided it gets me one step closer to "Avengers: Endgame".
Elizabeth Banks carries over from "Pitch Perfect 3"
FOLLOW-UP TO "Overboard" (Movie #3,143)
THE PLOT: A snooty socialite is stranded on a Mediterranean island with a communist sailor.
AFTER: OK, yeah, it kind of is THAT bad. But in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, right? Maybe not.
I didn't know this was a remake of an Italian film from 1974, and that film starred Giancarlo Giannini, and this one has his son, Adriano, in the same role his father played, that of the tortured deckhand who gets stranded on an island with the wealthy woman who made his life hell at every opportunity. But it also bears a strong resemblance to the 1987 film "Overboard", where a wealthy woman falls off a boat and gets amnesia and a working-class father somehow manages to convince her she's his wife and the mother of 4 boys that look nothing like her. Ah, a comedy about mistaken identity that involves a lot of fraud and rape...but this is essentially the same story, just told as a drama rather than as a comedy. Maybe for some people this comes off as an unintentional comedy.
What happens on the island here is a flipping of the power roles, where suddenly the lowly deckhand who's been ordered around and teased and made to feel small for the past week or so suddenly realizes that he's the only one among them who knows how to fish, find water, build a shelter and survive. So in a society without money, he has the only currency that matters, the knowledge that will keep them alive. And so he orders Amber, Madonna's character, around, makes her wash his clothes, cook the fish he caught, and when she refuses or disobeys, he slaps her. This might be difficult to watch and seem quite barbaric, but I say give it a chance, you might enjoy seeing Madonna slapped hard in the face and psychologically tortured.
As always, your mileage may vary - I was raised to believe that I should never hit a woman, but then I've never met Madonna. And considering how the pendulum has swung so far against it, and any form of abuse toward women, it could be difficult to watch. Essentially what's going on here is a form of the Stockholm Syndrome, right? Because after she's made to do grunt-work, dance for him and (literally) kiss his feet, she starts to have feelings for him. All that class struggle B.S. goes right out the window once you revert to caveman rules, apparently. You wonder if this is what is was like back in the Stone Age, where it was all broken down between the hunters and the gatherers, and men needed women but also women needed men, and each defined their role as the opposite of the other. Were things simpler back then, or just way more complicated now?
Anyway, the most laughable bit is probably when Miss High Society comes to realize that she LIKES her time on the island, doing forced labor and earning her meals, and she somehow becomes a better person, and someone who feels genuine (?) affection for a man she once thought of as crude, smelly and lower-class. Yeah, right. See, she JUST needed to be shown her place and beat up a bit to become a better human, doesn't everything work out for the best in the end? Pardon me while I throw up.
Wait, I take it back - the most laughable bit is when a ship comes near the island, and she DOES nothing to contact the ship, because she loves her new life as an island girl, catching fish and eating raw coconuts with none of the comforts of modern society. Ha ha ha hah HAH!
Eventually, they get rescued, which is shocking because Amber's husband probably wasn't looking for her very hard, he was enjoying the peace and quiet. But this becomes a true test of her love for Giuseppe, will she still desire him after they return to society, or is their love only contingent on his survival skills and their captor/victim relationship? Giuseppe desperately needs to know if their love will survive in the real world, but hey, be careful what you wish for.
Apart from a couple of cameos, Madonna has not acted in a feature film since this film killed her career - so you know there had to be an upside, right? What can I say, I'm a glass half-full kind of guy. And this film won five Razzie Awards, that's good, right? No wait, that's bad.
Also starring Madonna (last seen in "Desperately Seeking Susan"), Adriano Giannini (last seen in "Ocean's Twelve"), Bruce Greenwood (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Jeanne Tripplehorn (last seen in "Reality Bites"), Michael Beattie (last heard in "Despicable Me 3"), David Thornton (last seen in "Alpha Dog"), Yorgo Voyagis.
RATING: 3 out of 10 hallucinations
No comments:
Post a Comment