While seeing Milla Jovovich in a role that didn’t require her to jump around with dual pistols was refreshing. I found A Perfect Getaway to be quite mediocre and predictable. And what exactly do I mean by mediocre? Well the story wasn’t overly shocking, or surprising, I had the outcome figured out within minutes and the characters felt false and unbelievable. Though I will say it wasn’t all bad since Gina (Kiele Sanchez) was delicious, Nick (Timothy Olyphant) kept my attention and the Hawaiian scenery was a great backdrop. What ultimately drops this movie from good to mediocre however is the overbearing feeling of “I’ve seen this before”. Cydney’s (Milla Jovovich) girlish giggles and over-the-top happiness as the newly wed comes off as a bit much early in the movie, but when you learn more about her character it neatly fits, so kudos to Milla. Steve Zahn plays her nerdy hubby “Cliff” who shares most of the camera time and the 3rd couple Cleo and Kale are played by Marley Shelton and Chris Hemsworth.
A Perfect Getaway is essentially a guessing game with the audience being the brunt of the joke. The story begins with newly weds Cliff and Cydney going off on a three day honeymoon to a Hawaiian island. While on the island they learn that a murdering pair had been hopping islands and this makes them afraid of every strange couple they meet. On a long hike through the mountains, the lovers meet up at first with the rough looking Kale and Cleo and then the rather like-able Nick and Gina who decide to travel with them to the beach. This leads to a cat and mouse game of mystery as no-one trusts the other couples and it eventually leads to the killers revealing themselves.
The beach scenes may have been pretty, but the make-up and special effects were not. One scene shows a man pulling a knife from a freshly stabbed hand and the ease of which it came out, combined with the look of the hand was so obviously fake. There is a bit of dialogue when the two main guys discuss film and one notes that the attention to detail is what’s important. No doubt this is a movie to watch a few times once you are in on the truth, in retrospect the twist elements are pretty strong but foiled by the execution and the subtle hints which seemed more like big blaring signs. Steve Zahn and Timothy Olophant drive the movie along quite nicely as their opposing views and lives lead to some interesting and funny scenes. It’s the old computer nerd versus outdoors man conflict that we can all laugh at due to it’s believability.
Although it isn’t a bad movie, A Perfect Getaway missed out on being great first by allowing the trailers to warn us of a twist and then presenting us with three couples, two of which are stereotypically shady. If the players in this game were a nice even coat of nice, or menacing, the big reveal would have had more of an impact than this one did. Still, I watch a lot of movies and I know that my cynicism and knowledge makes it hard to pull twists off on me. the same can be said about many movie-goers but this is not necessarily the fault of the writers and actors. Many people will no doubt be surprised by this movie, fooled by the twist and tout it as a great thriller. For myself it was mediocre and could have been a lot better. In any event, it is still a decent movie for fans of the lovely Milla Jovovich.
Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.
