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Review by Susan Granger
2 stars out of 4
The road to mediocrity is paved with good intentions - or, more
succinctly, if you've seen the theatrical trailer, you've seen the funniest
moments in the film. In her first foray into romantic comedy, Angelina Jolie
("Lara Croft: Tomb Raider") plays an ambitious Seattle TV reporter who thinks
she has a perfect life. She's engaged to a slugger (Christian Kane) for the
Seattle Mariners and her producer is submitting her tape for a network AM-USA
job. Plus, she's got this amazing platinum hair! Don't dismiss the coiffeur
because it plays a big part in Angelina's allure here before her world goes
topsy-turvy when she does a fluff feature with a homeless street seer (Tony
Shalhoub) who tells her she leads a meaningless existence and has only one week
to live. She'd dismiss the psychic's prophecy but, when his other creepy
predictions come true, she panics and is forced to question her shallow,
superficial values. What's the most important thing in life: love or career?
Family or work? And just at this confusing time, she's sent to interview a
Barbara Walters-like TV celebrity (Stockard Channing). Redemption is obviously
on the horizon, embodied by Edward Burns as a caustic cameraman who left a New
York network job to relocate to Seattle to be near his young son. While
screenwriter John Scott Shepherd and director Stephen Herek may have been
inspired by the sassy, bantering romantic comedies of the '40s and '50s, they're
woefully in need of some originality here. The Jolie/Burns adversarial chemistry
clicks but the dialogue is lifeless and insipid as is David Newman's score. On
the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Life or Something Like It" is a preachy,
predictable 5, delivering a feel-good, positive message about the importance of
relationships and getting our priorities straight.
Copyright © 2002 Susan Granger
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out of 4
