scorpion-52

(2012-04-26 22:00:52)

Without Men(from a man's perspective)

I truly do not understand the negativity towards this film at all, itdosen't deserve such a low rating. The premise of an entire town ofwomen is carried out pretty well, I can see how some might be offendedby the female characters not being able to read or wanting to do work,but if you can look past that, you'll see a charming, witty(funniestpart for me was the women learning the joys of masturbation),lighthearted film with warm and likable characters, the relationshipbetween Eva and Castillo is truly beautiful and heartwarming. There'salso some interesting social commentary and female customs, forexample, the women decide to make up their own time of 28 suns insteadof 30 days(to go along with a women's cycle), the male performers do anadequate job, though their shortsided(understandable given thepremise)Oscar Nunez is a hoot as the impotent priest and Slater doeswell enough as the straight man, all in all this film was a verypleasant surprise and I would highly recommend it.

Matthew Stechel

(2012-04-26 06:51:32)

Middling but Longoria gives it her best shot

Film has a good enough premise but little else. Small Mexican communityloses all of its men when they're all rounded up against their will tofight in some unnamed war and the women end up taking over just finethank you...but as time goes on they find themselves missing their menand wonder what they're gonna do for survival ultimately deciding totry and repopulate their town by sleeping with the one man who is stillthere--the local priest! (played in a Way over the top performance byOscar Nunez from "The Office" and "The Proposal") Meanwhile in analmost completely tacked on subplot hotshot intrepid war correspondentChrisitan Slater is told of this village and sets out on his own tofind it as a human interest story in the midst of all this war.Movie keeps you watching in hopes that it will go somewhere interestingor so but ultimately goes nowhere. It doesn't help that almost everycharacter in the movie is a one dimensional cartoon character--and evenless subtle too boot. Film would actually be a complete and total messwere it not for the professional performance of Eva Longoria here. Infact I would go so far to say the reason why the film works at allwould be because of the slightly greater depth Longoria gives hercharacter. She actually manages to make her character seem like abetter thought out character then the other assorted characters hereand while i don't know if that's because the script focuses more on heror if its because Longoria gets to resemble an actual human being asopposed to the more comically exaggerated people here, i give her allthe credit in the world for providing the film with someone to actuallysomewhat care about. (if only Slater's character had been given as muchscreen time to develop into someone worth caring about as well)Longoria plays the uptight wife of the mayor who gladly takes overafter her husband is taken alongside the other men. Film is mostlyabout how she comes into her own while taking charge and makingdecisions for once, and also how she learns to loosen up while engagingin a flirtation with a lesbian drifter who becomes the sheriff of thetown (as well as the town's resident bad ass) As a case of a formerwallflower coming into her own the film actually works---as anythingelse however the film really doesn't. The film's tone is very broad andplayed in an over the top farcical style which doesn't really gel withthe subject matter. While its nice to see a film with this subjectmatter not played in heavy handed award baiting sympathy mode...i'm notsure if taking the complete opposite tone was the right track either.The mixture of tones-- wild sex farce and true love amongst sufferingvillage women could work well but doesn't really come off as well as itcould here. The film should play well on cable TV tho where the brightcolors and bouncy energy will help it stand out from what else is ontho it might not sustain your interest past the second or thirdcommercial break.

godzilla68

(2012-04-21 02:05:41)

Insulting to Intelligence

I didn't think that in this day and age and how far we have advanced,that a movie could be this bad. To think that people sat in a room andsaid, I think this is a good idea for a movie, AND people agreed to doit!!??? Shame on everyone involved to put this garbage out. I guesspeople will do anything for money! This movie is easily one of theworst movies EVER made hence its 2.3 score. I sat through about thefirst 10 minutes of the movie and couldn't continue. My wife satthrough it because she's an Eva Longoria fan, but after this movie I'mnot so sure anymore. Horrible acting, horrible story with horribleattempts at I'm not sure what accents. Did I say this movie washorrible? Don't waste your time and show these people you wouldn'tstand for this kind of garbage anymore.

Lazy Viewer

(2012-04-20 12:19:33)

Banking on half clothed women to carry a film

The creators of this film seemed to believe that the heavy sexualundertones and half clothed women would carry this film. They weremistaken.The movie begins with Christian Slater, a reporter stuck scrounging fora story, coming across a journal of Oscar Nunez (Oscar from TheOffice). Oscar describes a village that had all of it's men carriedaway to fight in a war which left all of the women to fend forthemselves. Considering many of them can't read or write, or evenchange a light bulb, this would be no easy task. Eva Longoria declaresherself mayor and tries to get everyone to work together to build theUtopian town of women.From the beginning this movie was hard to sit through. It becameobvious very early on that the movie would not be carried on it's ownbut rather gambled on the fact that the hope of seeing girl on girlaction would keep the viewer in their place. I cringed at the thoughtthat Christian Slater, Oscar Nunez, and Eva Longoria actually read thisscript and went on board to make this ridiculous movie.The acting and storyline were bad and the only thing I came away withis wishing I could have that part of my life back. I would have rathergotten the laundry caught up.