The embargo on “Seven Pounds” has been finally broken. Reviews have hit from Variety, the Village Voice and Timeout New York (who incidentally don’t get enough love) and the prognosis is not good.
Variety: “Given Emily’s (Rosario Dawson) vulnerability, Ben’s (Will Smith) gentle patience with her, Smith’s and Dawson’s attractiveness, the lushly intimate widescreen images devised by [Gabriele] Muccino and lenser Philippe Le Sourd, and Angelo Milli’s literally incessant button-pushing score, “Seven Pounds” offers either seductive emotional appeal or indigestible mawkishness, according to taste.”
Like us, the Village Voice greatly respected Muccino’s “The Pursuit of Happyness,” but they write: “Writing at the time, I praised the film for Smith’s superb performance and for its willingness to honestly address the social and economic realities of America’s underclass. Watching Smith and Muccino’s latest collaboration, Seven Pounds, I marveled (to paraphrase the great Jermaine Jackson) that something so right could go so wrong.”
TimeOut is particularly brutal, but still pretty much correct in their analysis: “Seven Pounds is otherwise a prototypical gimmick movie: All interest rests in the big twist, which you may well guess on your own. (If you do, much tedium awaits.) Still, even by the standards of gotcha flicks, Seven Pounds seems especially somnolent and pretentious. Smith struggles valiantly to remain compelling while keeping most facets of his character secret, but the romance between him and Dawson moves so slowly, it’s a miracle they don’t fall asleep on camera.”
Do we feel dumb for sort of defending it? Nope, it’s not like we loved it, a review seems doubtful at this time (cause we just don’t feel inspired about it at all), but it wasn’t terribly mawkish. We’d probably have given in at B-/C+ grade, but what we were saying initially is that it wasn’t brutally bad (like some films we’ve seen recently). The film has a very poor 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so perhaps we did like it better than most. We still will ascertain that Rosario Dawson is quite good in it.
We’ll leave the full-on defense to respectable critic David Poland who seems to be leading that charge.
“Seven Pounds” opens this weekend and will face off against Jim Carrey’s “Yes Man.” As corny as it can be at times, we’d rather people go see ‘Pounds’ before rubberface’s retarded shtick.