MovieChat Forums > Swept Away (2002) Discussion > Certainly NOT awful!

Certainly NOT awful!

posted 16 years ago by dark_mic
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I kept reading in magazines and the net for more than 5 years now that "SWEPT AWAY" was bad,bad,BAD!!! I never had the chance to see it till last night when it aired on a local TV station. Well, I really do not understand all the hatred about it; it was an average movie, nothing special but nothing horrible either. The ending was moving and Madonna was certainly not awkard in her part. The only reason I can think that this movie got so much negative reviews is the fact that Guy Ritchie dared direct his famous wife in this remake of a somewhat classic italian film. Anyway I'd rather watch this than Shyamalan's "SIGNS" or Spielberg's "WAR OF THE WORLDS" or Woody Allen's "HOLLYWOOD ENDING" which got good reviews and yet I have never met anyone so far who liked any of them!

[–] Red7Eric 16 years ago

I agree -- admittedly, I'm a big Madonna fan, and so approached this warily, after hearing so much bad press. I thought it was a pretty good film, all things considered.

I think that Madonna's detractors take so much joy from knocking her off of her pedestal (a pedestal that they created simply so they could knock her off of it, but whatever) that there's an almost automatic reaction to hate everything she does.

For my money, she was brilliant in EVITA (should have been nominated for an Oscar, in my opinion), really funny in DICK TRACY, and perfectly charming in DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN. At the same time, I'll be the first to admit that SHANGHAI SURPRISE and DANGEROUS GAME were awful movies, but I think they would have been awful, anyway. Clearly, she did nothing to make them any better, and (sorry, Madge), I thought she was dreadful in THE NEXT BEST THING; I actually couldn't watch past the half hour mark, it was so bad.

But this one was actually pretty good, I thought. Kinda makes me want to see GIGLI, just to see if all the hate-hype about that movie was similarly unjustified ...

Cheers, all.
EP in DC

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