I tend to brutally honest when I express my opinions on Twitter, but it never occurred to me that a screenwriter (Allison Burnett, in this case) would reply back to my unintentionally “mean” tweets. To say the least, I felt bad judging this guy’s movie unseen. It’s not exactly fair to judge a movie just on its trailer, especially when it comes from Summit Entertainment, a studio with one of the worst marketing departments ever. Hence, I braved the rain and cold and headed to a screening of Gone in downtown. Well, you know what? I stand by my tweet. Amanda Seyfried needs a new agent because Gone was terrible.
Gone takes place in Portland, Oregon and follows Jill (Seyfried) as she searches for her sister, who she believes has been kidnapped. Jill had been kidnapped a year before, managed to overcome her kidnapper, and escape. However, when she reported to the police what had happened, they didn’t believe her. She showed no evidence that she had been kidnapped. On top of that, they had never found the place in the forest where she had been taken. To the police, the kidnapping had never existed. So they had Jill declared crazy and sent to a mental institution. Now, a year later, with her sister inexplicably missing, Jill is sure the kidnapper had come back to take her sister. Or is Jill simply crazy?
Sounds like a Lifetime movie? It should have been. Within the first ten minutes, I had already figured out who the kidnapper was. I basically waited the entire movie to be proven correct. Usually, I can deal with predictability, as long as there are some entertaining moments in between. There weren’t. This is the least thrilling thriller I have seen in the longest time. We basically watch Amanda Seyfried run around, with her big eyes, looking scared and a little crazy. Any time the movie gets close to having a real intense moment, it just completely flat-lines. The ending was just… what? I don’t even know how to express my confusion over it. It wasn’t a complicated ending or anything. It was more like “Is that really it?”
The acting wasn’t good. I totally like Amanda Seyfried as an actress, but with this movie and In Time, she is definitely not helping herself. But I think the real problem was that the cast was handicapped by a terrible script. Not only was it cliché, but the dialogue was corny (and not the good kind of corny). The lines that were supposed to be funny weren’t funny; the lines that were meant to serious were laughably bad. Also, does the Portland police really have nothing better to do than look for a small, possibly-crazy girl with a gun?
I shouldn’t have gone to the theater last night. It wasn’t worth braving the cold and rain. It wouldn’t even be worth it if it had been warm and sunny! If you really do want to see Gone, I absolutely suggest waiting to rent it. I love movies and hate when I have to write a particularly harsh review. I know a lot of hard work goes into making a film. So while my tweet may not have been fair, I did give the movie a fair chance and obviously, can’t help but be very disappointed by it.
Gone is now playing in theaters.
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