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On paper, Allied should be a great movie. You have a bona fide movie star in Brad Pitt as the leading man and a bona fide movie star in Marion Cotillard as the leading lady. Robert Zemeckis is directing and the setting is one of the most interesting times in human history, WWII. Both play secret agents tasked with taking out a Nazi ambassador in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Casablanca. Somehow this movie that has so many good things going for it finds ways to disappoint despite having a solid first half. This review is going to have a lot to do with the overall intention of a movie and how it relates to the scores I give out.Review Allied (2016) :
To begin the first half of the movie is not too bad. It shows how the main characters meet and react to each other with the difficult task ahead of them. There was some interesting tension and cinematic moments that can be appreciated. It was paced really well even with quite a few dialogue sections with some exposition but those moments were juxtaposed with some moments with real tension. For some reason the second half of the movie did not follow suit. I'm not sure if the overall plot got in the way or the studio got in the way but the third act was full of holes and felt on rails.
Robert Zemeckis has directed some of the biggest movies of his time, Back to the Future and Forrest Gump to name a few, but I think his age has caught up to him. Allied feels slow and unexciting, even in the high points of the action there seems to be a quick build up with an unexciting pay off. It is not a great looking movie, with some locations either being green screen or just terribly lit. The editing is also not helping but there is really nothing brought by the director that gets the viewer excited.
The performances of Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard are a bit all over the place if only because after that first half they don't spend much time on screen together. Both performances are fine but some of the reactions don't make perfect sense in the context of the story. Really all of the acting is fairly solid and if there is one thing about this movie that is a positive the acting is it.
Overall the writing is not terribly great. There are some high moments that like I have mentioned before mostly take place in the first half of the movie. There seem to be entire scenes that are useless and characters seem to constantly be doing things that left me shaking my head. The idea is a great one, two WWII spys who fall in love, who may be taking deep secrets into their post mission affairs is one I can get behind. What ends up playing out in the movie is in some cases infuriating. disappointment.
Allied, based on the people involved was supposed to be a huge hit and a possible Oscar contender. The movie comes nothing close to that and does not even fall into the "decent" spy thriller genre. Nothing about the characters brings much to be desired and other than the actors playing them are pretty forgettable. I wanted the movie to end up surprising me close to the end with something that would change my opinion of the movie at least a little bit but that moment never came. I don't think the ending of a movie should necessarily define how good a movie is but by the end of Allied I was begging for something off the all to make it all worth it. With quite a few movies being released this holiday season I would recommend you spend your time on something better. I saw "Allied", starring Brad Pitt-World War Z, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and FYI, there is a second WWZ coming in 2017; Marion Cotillard-The Dark Knight Rises, Contagion; Jared Harris-The Man From U.N.C.L.E._2015, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Lizzy Caplan- Masters of Sex_tv, Smallville_tv.
This is a WW2 spy/thriller/romance that reminded me of an older movie called 'Casablanca'. Brad, a Canadian intelligence officer, and Marion, a French resistance fighter, play spies that team up on a mission in North Africa in 1942. On their mission, they have to pretend to be husband and wife and one thing leads to another and well, they have a real romance. After the mission, Brad pops the question and they move back to London and start a family-they have a little girl. That is when Jared, Brad's superior officer, informs Brad that they suspect Marion is really a German spy. Of course, Brad does not believe it but they give him 72 hours to uncover the truth. If she is a spy, Brad must execute her himself. Otherwise, he will be facing a court-martial and then be hung by the neck until dead. Lizzy plays Brad's sister. It's a good story, with good actors and supposedly, this is the movie that broke up Brad and Angelina. There were rumors of a real romance going on between Brad and Marion on the set. I don't know if it's true or not but the movie is good. It keeps you guessing on whether or not she is a German spy. It's rated "R" for violence, language, drug use and sexual content- including partial nudity-and has a running time of 2 hours & 4 minutes. I would probably buy it on DVD.
Les Crap ! When movies make fun of "Hollywood Movies" within the movie-THIS is that movie. Handsome star driven drivel that is over stylized in look and dialogue. While the impeccably dressed Brad Pitt takes on those lousy (and also quite well dressed) Nazis briefly in Casablanca to remind the audience who the bad guys were in WW Two, most of the film centers around the trite and jejune dilemma of "true love" between the handsome soldier and his mademoiselle. "Allies' turns "Casablanca" on its tete, by truly making two people's Hill of Beans much more profound than the side show of the world going crazy when true Evil almost destroyed civilization. The movie reminds me a little of the English Patient" without Any of the "good stuff" and all of the "love conquers all" self involvement. Plus Ralph Fiennes can act circles around Brad. That the acting is uninteresting is not surprising, but generally Robert Zemackis's directing is far better than this trivial effort. Usually in his box of Chocolat you know what you're going to get- not this le petit mort. Judah Shapiro
During World War II, intelligence officer Max Vatan(Brad Pitt) is paired up with French Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour(Marion Cotillard) on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Their mission brings them closer, ultimately causing them to fall in love, but their relationship is threatened by the extreme pressures of the war.
On paper, this movie should be Oscar bait, but it falls short due to it's problematic pacing and some dry performances. It sounds like overkill at this point, but chemistry is very important in any romance film. I always find comedies the hardest films to make, but I feel as though romance is always hard to evoke in any movie. I appreciated what Pitt and Cotillard tried to bring to the table, but it came off as dry, and the poor, and somewhat boring pacing doesn't help either.
When conflict arises and things get going, they provide some entertainment with some tension building moments. Pitt's character Max goes through the extreme to prove that his wife Marianne isn't a spy or the Germans. So to that degree, at least the characters were somewhat engaging.
Some characters in the film are also distractingly unnecessary like Lizzy Chaplan as Pitt's sister in the film Bridget Vatan. She didn't really serve anything to the plot at all.
Robert Zemeckis has his hits and misses and does a competent job for the most part. But his best work is still Back to the Future. I just had to point that out. Technically the film is well made. It's lit fabulously, and the film itself is a huge throwback to 40's cinema. The set design is immersive and it showcases some delicate costumes for both leads. The film is overall visually rich and very pleasant to look at. Allied is at it's most compelling when it's a spy thriller, not when it's a sweeping romance with a WWII backdrop. At least the romance aspect is the one thing that most WWII films don't really bring to the table, as it is very uncommon.
6/10, A WW2 romantic thriller about 2 spies who fall in love. Stars a Canadian spy played by Brad Pitt, whose character parachutes into French Morocco to complete a mission to assassinate a Nazi officer, he meets a French spy played by Marion Cotillard. There is a tangible sexual tension between our heroes, they fall in love, complete their mission, move to London, get married and have a daughter.
All seems well, but new information comes to light. Brad is called to a secret meeting in the depths of GCHQ, there he is told that his wife is not all she appears to be, and suspicion is she may be a German spy! The news results in Brad needing to investigate and take appropriate action. What I liked … The lovemaking scene in a car during a sandstorm What I didn't like … The impromptu party scene back in London, could they really have had a raucous, noisy, brightly lit party during a wartime blackout? The film is worth viewing for its styling and has a convincing old fashioned look, but I'd only recommend if nothing else showing.
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