Blu-ray Review: Some Kind Of Beautiful (Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek)

Blu-ray Reviews

This movie is Some Kind of Awful. Granted, I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece from a straight-to-video offering starring Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek, and Jessica Alba, but this manages to never come near the already somewhat low bar set for itself.

Brosnan stars as Richard, a stereotypical aging yet still handsome lit professor. Richard works at Cambridge University and one day attracts the attention of the lovely young Kate (Alba). Fast forward to six months later, and the pair has been dating and it’s time for Richard to meet Kate’s father. While waiting for Kate, Richard bumps into Olivia (Hayek), and of course he has to hit on her. When people as attractive as Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek see each other, they just have to hit on each other. That’s just science.

Wouldn’t you know it, Olivia just happens to be Kate’s sister, and thus she immediately disapproves of Kate dating a man her father’s age that just hit on her older sister. That’s pretty reasonable actually – and that’s about the extent of reasonable behavior displayed in this mess of a film.

Jumping ahead a few more years, Richard and Kate have managed to stay together and they have a son, Jake (Duncan Joiner). Richard has managed to be a good father, but his marriage to Kate ends when she falls for the much younger Brian (Ben McKenzie). Depressed, Richard gets caught drinking and driving, which of course makes his Kate exceptionally angry. When Kate has to go out of town, she asks Olivia to come and stay with Richard and Jake, to make sure Jake is adequately taken care of.

What Kate fails to realize is that putting two attractive people together under any circumstances will make them fall in love, at least according to braindead films like this one. The script by first time screenwriter Matthew Newman manages to hit just about every romantic comedy cliché, and peppers in a handful of painfully unfunny sequences designed to get big laughs. Needless to say each and every one of them fails. Director Tom Vaughan is also responsible for the abysmal “What Happens in Vegas” and the dreary “Extraordinary Measures,” so it should come as no surprise that he’s on the direct-to-video roster at this point.

The romantic comedy is a tried and true genre, and one that certainly isn’t going anywhere. It seems easy to find attractive people, come up with a meet-cute, throw in an obstacle, and top it off with a happy ending. How the makers of “Some Kind of Beautiful” managed to fail at this formula (after the first step) is pretty impressive – but don’t mistake that for any kind of praise or recommendation. This really is a terrible film with no redeeming qualities.

One special feature is presented on this Blu-ray, a making-of featurette titled “Inside the Heart of a Romantic.” This is a (thankfully) short feature, and is nearly as banal as the film itself. Vaughan actually praises the cast because “they’re not afraid to just go for it,” which is so far beyond being a cliché that it’s not really even fair to call it a cliché. This made me dislike the film even more.

Lionsgate presents Some Kind of Beautiful. Written by Matthew Newman. Directed by Tom Vaughan. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek, Jessica Alba, Ben McKenzie, and Malcolm McDowell. Run Time: 100 minutes. Rated R. Released: December 1, 2015.

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