Citizen's Critique

Angel Eyes, reviewed by Sophie Blaine


I should have known by looking at the poster that this movie was going to be trouble. The soft focus, J-Lo's luminous eyes, the fading-into-white thing. All I could think was Ice Castles. This is the very worst kind of "chick flick." Designed to be "moody" and "heart-wrenching," it plucks at the emotions with all the subtlety of a John Deere harvester during wheat season.


Basically, you've got Jennifer Lopez as a cop with big issues. A mysterious stranger (Jim Caviezel) saves her life and they sort of fall for each other in a "I'm-too-damaged-for-love" kind of way. The audience is supposed to root for these two beatific humans, but I was bored, so instead of trying to follow the ripping-off-The Sixth Sense-plot, I thought long and hard about Caviezel. He's remarkably handsome, but obsessively, alarmingly so. His blue-green eyes look quite capable of beaming through the slats of your blinds with no compunction whatsoever. I'm sorry, but movies about unnaturally handsome guys who show up repeatedly and stare longingly at the heroine don't do anything for me. While filmmakers think that us chicks will swoon, all it does for this chick is make me think of Ted Bundy. Creepy.