A Perfeect Getaway

This could be one of the most awful movies of the year. Then, it gets worse.

Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich star as Cliff and Sydney - two newlyweds on the honeymoon of a lifetime. They are off to Hawaii to hike some of the most beautiful trails known to the human eye, but danger is lurking behind the palm trees.

Two honeymooners were brutally murdered nearby, so everyone is afraid to go out on those lonely, isolated trails (I am afraid to go someplace with no bathroom facilities and no room service, so I can relate). While they have their apprehensions, the newlyweds decide they need to enjoy this momentous occasion and live out their dream vacation (Famous last words!).

Along the way, Cliff and Sydney run into two other couples, Gina (Kiele Sanchez) and Nick (Timothy Olyphant), as well as Cleo (Marley Shelton) and Kale (Chris Hemsworth), so, as people start to act peculiarly, they wonder if one of these fellow hiking pairs are the killers everyone is worried about.

Who are the killers?

Will they be caught?

Nothing happens! A Perfect Getaway stinks because you spend most of the movie waiting for something, anything, to happen. Instead, writer/director David Twohy gives us a movie with no tension, no scary scenes and no good thrills. We don't get close calls that put our heroes within inches of peril or shocks that make you jump out of your seat until it is beyond too late.

Then, Twohy gives us the most unnecessary flashback sequence I have ever seen in a movie, and, guess what? It sheds light on NOTHING! By the time the flashback starts, you have figured it out, know the characters, don't need a long explanation of what has happened in the past and learn absolutely NOTHING of importance. Almost every moment in A Perfect Getaway is a waste of time, but the last act is worse than a waste of time.

Here's the other problem facing A Perfect Getaway. When all of the advertising for a movie like this promotes some "big twist", you almost always figure it out, since you are looking for it the entire time. Humans like a mental challenge. If you tell us to look for a huge twist, we are going to look for it and try to figure it out ahead of time, so don't throw down the gauntlet unless you have a good enough surprise to shock us.

Sadly, this happens in A Perfect Getaway. The audience hasn't been distracted by any action on the screen (you might even fall asleep), so we have had plenty of time to think it through and interpret the extremely obvious and overly self-indulgent clues dropped by Twohy. He can't even get the surprise aspect of this movie right.

Olyphant is good as some sort of crazy comic relief, but I don't think that was intentional. He's hamming it up and making the character crazier and crazier until you can't hold back the chuckles and guffaws, so kudos to him for giving us some reason to pay the slightest bit of attention, even if it is by accident. Yet, it's not enough to save you from a dreadful, ridiculous, horrible movie.

A Perfect Getaway is rated R for graphic violence, language including sexual references and some drug use.