There is a certain target audience for a movie like “Camille”. It is the story of a simple southern girl named Camille (Sienna Miller) who convinces a reluctant petty thief named Silias (James Franco) to marry her. They take off on a honeymoon road trip to Niagara Falls, but, along the way, there is a accident. Luckily, it is a MAGICAL accident, and Camille winds up becoming the most beeyootiful zombie that evar unlived.
Given the zombie element to this love story, you might thing the target audience is more Fangoria than Fairy Tale But you would be, as I was, sorely mistaken. As someone who ordinarily steers as clear as possible from overly sentimental Hallmark crap like “Maid of Honor”, it takes a quirky element to get me to watch anything baring the “romantic comedy” label. For example, a machine that erases memories, or, say, a woman who comes back from the dead. However, the writer of this fluffy little torture piece squandered every opportunity to make an original film. At his point, I’m pretty convinced that he stole the idea from someone else but then had no idea how to properly execute it.
For those of you who loved “Runaway Bride” or think Sienna Miller is just SOOO pretty, this movie is definitely for you. Never mind if you “can’t watch scary movies” or “think zombies are gross”. Trust me. There “gore” in this thing is strictly PG. The presumably dead Camille only grows more radiant as the film wears on. Wouldn’t Silias’ falling for Camille been more romantic if she’d been losing appendages and turning green? And no, a little broken finger under a glove or a tiny bloodless bullet wound doesn’t count. Also, that bitch really needs to stop taking her ring off on moving motorcycles and over open drains.
What could have been a cool embalming scene becomes a boring, soft-lit sponge bath. All the potential hilarity of a rotting living dead girl is simply…missing. Don’t even get me started on the dialog. Let’s just say there’s plenty of people believing in other people and true love prevailing and junk.
Leave a beautiful corpse.
By the way, what the hell is UP with David Carradine? Is he senile in real life? His role as a rambling mystical circus cowboy doesn’t make any sense. Surely somewhere they are making an updated film version of Kung Fu starring Will Farrell or Vince Vaughn. Give the poor man a cameo. He is clearly hurting for work.
As for me, I’m going to watch a well-executed undead love story to try and wipe this experience from my memory.
May 29, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment
