Man, when I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I had been predicting that James Franco (Harry in the Spider-Man films) was going to be a big huge star as soon as he started getting his own leading roles. Well… after seeing Tristan and Isolde… and now after seeing the Annapolis reviews, I may be eating my words.
I’ve commented on this site before that Annapolis looks like nothing but a poor man’s An Officer and a Gentleman (Awesome fricken movie if you haven’t seen it yet). As a matter of fact… it look EXACTLY like it… except James Franco is no Richard Gere and Tyrese Gibson is no Louis Gossett Jr.
So now the Annapolis reviews are floating in… and they don’t look pretty:
“Annapolis is so gung-ho about the United States Naval Academy’s ability to turn boys into fighting men and rebels into scrappy team players that it could easily be confused with a military recruiting film.”
Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES“… an exhausted wheeze of bankrupt cliches and cardboard characters, the kind of film that has no visible reason for existing, except that everybody got paid.”
Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES“The only impressive thing about it is the monotony and thoroughness with which it replicates cliches from older, better movies and hammers them into pop alloy to an up-with-me beat beat beat of its musical score.”
Stephen Hunter, WASHINGTON POST“Actually, the lyrics to In the Navy are more sophisticated than Annapolis, which was assembled by the handy-dandy Disney make-a-movie kit and is loaded with parts borrowed from other films.”
Bill Muller, ARIZONA REPUBLIC
As of this moment, Annapolis is carrying a pitiful 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. Don’t bother… not going to. What a waste of potential. Franco should fire his agent and hold out for better roles to try to launch his “leading man” career… because crap like this isn’t going to hack it.
