Arizona Reporter - Harvey Critic - 29/07
CHARLIE ST. CLOUD 'Two words. Zac Efron.'
There might have been a time that movies about folks who see beings that nobody else can was risk-taking, but then again, maybe not, since even in 1946, Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey was able to see Clarence the angel in "It's a Wonderful Life" and the same actor in 1972 saw a six-foot rabbit with a wonderful name. When Cole Sear announced in 1999 "I can see dead people," others in his life treated that gift as no big deal. Seeing things that nobody else can see may be a cliché but M. Night Shyamalan knew how to win over an audience by evoking terrific performances and displaying a suspenseful plot-with a great twist at the conclusion.
By Harvey Karten
Grade: D
Directed By: Burr Steers
Written By: Craig Pearce, Lewis Colick
Cast: Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Ray Liotta, Kim Basinger, Chris Massoglia, Dave Franco
Screened at: Universal, NYC, 7/22/10
Opens: July 30, 2010
By contrast, when Charlie St. Cloud (Zac Efron) promises to be with his vivacious eleven-year-old brother, Sam (Charlie Tahan), every day in the same place at the same time, you can't blame an audience for yawning. Sam was killed when Charlie's car is hit by a drunk driver, killing the kid brother while Charlie ended up nearly dead himself. In fact Florio Ferrente (Ray Liotta), the paramedic who notes that Charlie's heartbeat had gone flat but perked up suddenly, leaving him merely injured but despondent. Florio lets the young man know that he has been given a gift-which turns out to be the ability to see and play catch with Sam's ghost. Nonetheless, Charlie is so overwhelmed with guilt for being the indirect cause of the kid's death that he gives up a sailing scholarship to Stanford University, the Harvard of the West, not too far from his home in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. Instead, he takes on a job usually held by 70-year-old grizzled men: graveyard caretaker, which gives him the use of a shack by the cemetery. In other words, he defies the tagline of the movie, "Life is for living," which seems logical enough but in this case means that a twenty-three-year-old fellow with looks that put him into competition with a young Brad Pitt and with the current Robert Pattinson, should we doing a lot more than taking care of weeds and making sure that people do not make marks on the gravestones.
The picture is divided into two plots. One involves watching Charlie play catch with his brother. The other involves a romance with a Tess Carroll (Amanda Crew), a pleasant-enough person but not one with looks that could take audience attention away from Charlie's. Like Charlie, Tess is an avid sailor. The movie opens, in fact, on a sailboat race, beautifully filmed by Enrique Chediak-though it's difficult to film anything in the Oregon-Washington area that is anything but that. Other than cinematography, the dialogue is banal, the plot utterly conventional (talking to a ghost notwithstanding), and the whole business might find a spot on TV's Hallmark Hall of Fame-which is not that insulting considering that Jimmy Stewart's Elwood P. Dowd in "Harvey" appeared on that very program.
Why would anyone want to go to such a formulaic project? Two words. Zac Efron. The 23-year-old is probably the handsomest Hollywood actor in his age range today, head and shoulders above Robert Pattinson-but in a pretty-boy way, which is to say with age he is not likely to acquire the manly charisma of a Colin Farrell or a Daniel Craig. The audience for this is the teen and tween girl demographic, a PG-13 job with only one or two mildly vulgar words and a sex scene as discreet as you'd find in the 1950s movies that signify action by aiming the camera at the dark outside and continuing its gaze with the rising sun.
The poster is a giveaway: just a closeup of Zac Efron looking wistfully at the sky, the dock and water in the background. This could be the dullest poster of the year, but the marketing department knows what it's doing: The film is not marketed for any group but the young women who might drool each time they see this young man and go to this movie not for plot of acting but for what can be reduced to a modeling session. Blink and you won't see Kim Basinger, who plays the part of St. Cloud's mom, but then again, what teen wants to spend much time with a 56-year-old woman. however beautiful?
Rated PG-13. 90 minutes. © 2010 Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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CHARLIE ST. CLOUD Universal Pictures
"Two words. Zac Efron." ~ Harvey Karten
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter
By Harvey Karten
Grade: D
Directed By: Burr Steers
Written By: Craig Pearce, Lewis Colick
Cast: Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Ray Liotta, Kim Basinger, Chris Massoglia, Dave Franco
Screened at: Universal, NYC, 7/22/10
Opens: July 30, 2010
By contrast, when Charlie St. Cloud (Zac Efron) promises to be with his vivacious eleven-year-old brother, Sam (Charlie Tahan), every day in the same place at the same time, you can't blame an audience for yawning. Sam was killed when Charlie's car is hit by a drunk driver, killing the kid brother while Charlie ended up nearly dead himself. In fact Florio Ferrente (Ray Liotta), the paramedic who notes that Charlie's heartbeat had gone flat but perked up suddenly, leaving him merely injured but despondent. Florio lets the young man know that he has been given a gift-which turns out to be the ability to see and play catch with Sam's ghost. Nonetheless, Charlie is so overwhelmed with guilt for being the indirect cause of the kid's death that he gives up a sailing scholarship to Stanford University, the Harvard of the West, not too far from his home in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. Instead, he takes on a job usually held by 70-year-old grizzled men: graveyard caretaker, which gives him the use of a shack by the cemetery. In other words, he defies the tagline of the movie, "Life is for living," which seems logical enough but in this case means that a twenty-three-year-old fellow with looks that put him into competition with a young Brad Pitt and with the current Robert Pattinson, should we doing a lot more than taking care of weeds and making sure that people do not make marks on the gravestones.
The picture is divided into two plots. One involves watching Charlie play catch with his brother. The other involves a romance with a Tess Carroll (Amanda Crew), a pleasant-enough person but not one with looks that could take audience attention away from Charlie's. Like Charlie, Tess is an avid sailor. The movie opens, in fact, on a sailboat race, beautifully filmed by Enrique Chediak-though it's difficult to film anything in the Oregon-Washington area that is anything but that. Other than cinematography, the dialogue is banal, the plot utterly conventional (talking to a ghost notwithstanding), and the whole business might find a spot on TV's Hallmark Hall of Fame-which is not that insulting considering that Jimmy Stewart's Elwood P. Dowd in "Harvey" appeared on that very program.
Why would anyone want to go to such a formulaic project? Two words. Zac Efron. The 23-year-old is probably the handsomest Hollywood actor in his age range today, head and shoulders above Robert Pattinson-but in a pretty-boy way, which is to say with age he is not likely to acquire the manly charisma of a Colin Farrell or a Daniel Craig. The audience for this is the teen and tween girl demographic, a PG-13 job with only one or two mildly vulgar words and a sex scene as discreet as you'd find in the 1950s movies that signify action by aiming the camera at the dark outside and continuing its gaze with the rising sun.
The poster is a giveaway: just a closeup of Zac Efron looking wistfully at the sky, the dock and water in the background. This could be the dullest poster of the year, but the marketing department knows what it's doing: The film is not marketed for any group but the young women who might drool each time they see this young man and go to this movie not for plot of acting but for what can be reduced to a modeling session. Blink and you won't see Kim Basinger, who plays the part of St. Cloud's mom, but then again, what teen wants to spend much time with a 56-year-old woman. however beautiful?
Rated PG-13. 90 minutes. © 2010 Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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