Ben and Katie (Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer) choose to separate when the children are away on summer camp. We see them working through the new relationship status, while looking back on the highs and lows of the marriage.
Director Rob Reiner (who also stars as a family friend) wisely keeps the film simple and focused.
It’s an intriguing premise but the first half of the film gets a little bogged down in explaining the complicated "rules". It improves in the second half, when farm woman Sara (Emily Blunt) appears as the love interest for the younger of the two Joes. She is also the mother of a boy who will grown up to be an evil future ganglord if the course of events is not disrupted.
It’s best if you don’t ask too many questions about the time travel aspects of the story. There are some exciting moments, but the film didn’t make me care about any of the characters. It was difficult to believe that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would ever become Bruce Willis, so different were the two actors in terms of charisma. Gordon-Levitt seems to have barely any character at all. I'm no fan of Willis, but he does at least bring a basic presence to his scenes.
On the plus side, it’s not every day that you hear Richard and Linda Thompson’s "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" on a soundtrack.
It has some of the pantomime silliness of Flash Gordon, but absolutely none of the charm. And it steals from Blade Runner (there’s Vangelis-like music at one point, and Jovovich seems modelled on Daryl Hannah’s Pris at others), but it has none of that film’s vision or innovation. It’s played for comedy, but it’s never funny. It falls flat. The crass talk-show host Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker) is just embarrassing – possibly the most annoying film character I’ve ever encountered.
Absolutely nothing about this film appeals.
