Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank gives Earhart a convincing Kansas twang but little else in a performance that is unaccountably stiff.
Comment
11/12/09
Amelia (2009)
21
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:140
Fresh:29
Rotten:111
Average Rating:4.4/10
Consensus: Amelia takes the compelling raw materials of its subject’s life and does little with them, conventionally ticking off Earhart's accomplishments without exploring the soul of the woman.
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $14,133,329
Synopsis: Visionary. Lover. Dreamer. Fighter. Legend. Icon. AMELIA. An extraordinary life of adventure, celebrity and continuing mystery comes to light in AMELIA, a vast, thrilling account of legendary... [More]
Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston
Director: Mira Nair
Reviews for Amelia
1 - 20 (sorted by rotten rating; Australian critics are listed first)
Top CriticSwanks’ clear shot at a third statuette is blocked by hulkingly dull writing and direction that could point the way towards a definitive cure for insomnia.
11/11/09
Top CriticRomance edges ahead of adventure or characterisations and as a result, despite a soaring lead performance by Hilary Swank, the film suffers from a fatal dose of melodrama
11/05/09
Top CriticThe period detail is brilliantly brought to life, but the film is superficial, lacking the passion of its heroine.
11/11/09
Top CriticAmelia reminds us how little we really know about the lives of famous achievers who changed the world, and underlines the power of biography on screen. It's a creatively and technically accomplished film with thrills and emotional action in equal measure
11/05/09
Top CriticTowards the end, as the story returns to that round-the-world flight, the suspense kicks in, and Swank’s performance comes into its own.
11/11/09
Top CriticHilary Swank captures her beautifully.
11/11/09
Top CriticClick to read the article
10/30/09
Top CriticAmelia was a great adventurer and an inspirational woman. But you would hardly know it from this uninspiring romantic slush.
11/13/09
Top CriticWwhy does such an exciting life make such a dull movie?
10/26/09
What should have been a soaring, inspirational, complex epic has been grounded by bad storytell ADVERTISEMENT ing, chocolate-box visuals, rubbish star turns and another awful US accent from a Ewan McGregor.
11/13/09
Gere and McGregor are fine actors, but Nair uses them like the expendable males (Zachary Scott, Franchot Tone, et al) who stood back and let Bette Davis and Joan Crawford do all the heavy lifting back in the day.
10/22/09
Swank has fun in the role - I haven't seen her smile this much in years - but she isn't given much complicated to do besides frustrate her friends when she digs in her heels.
10/19/09
less engaging than a game of connect-the-dots, which is, essentially, all this is
10/24/09
The look of the movie – suave Art Deco lines and 1930s fashions – is blameless, though helpless to counter the Ron Bass screenplay, guaranteed to drain the life out of any drama it touches.
11/13/09
History can weigh heavily on a filmmaker, and that is what happens with Amelia, a disappointing rendering of the remarkable life of Amelia Earhart.
10/22/09
Top CriticThe movie is like a plane you see off in the distance: You recognize it's a plane but its details are indistinct.
10/31/09
Swank's resemblance to Earhart is uncanny, but the result is verisimilitude without engagement %u2014 a risk-taker's story told entirely without narrative risk, and a movie that consequently never takes flight.
10/22/09
Two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank can’t give any lift to Amelia, a soggy, un-engaging biopic.
10/21/09
What the film offers is melodrama, more interested in the aviatrix's bedroom activities than her spirit. Amelia hunts for complexity, but it only achieves a tedious middle ground.
10/22/09
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October 22, 2009:
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