There was a big splashy premiere in New York last night for “A Big Beautiful Journey.”
It’s a Sony Pictures release starring two high profile actors, Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell.”
Alas, the reviews are in and it’s pretty much of a disaster. The words “Dull,” “Miscalculated,” and “Deliberately Slow” come up a lot on Rotten Tomatoes, which gives it a 56% Rotten score. Even Pete Hammond on Deadline.com didn’t like it, and he tries to find the best in everything.
South Korean director Kogonada — who’s got two terrific films on his short resume including “Columbus” and “After Yang” — maybe had too big a budget or no script for Robbie and Farrell.
By the way, the supporting cast is all Big Names: Oscar and Tony winner Kevin Kline (didn’t show for the premiere, I guess he knew), Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Poor Sony. So many flops in one year. “Caught Stealing,” which I liked, was totally blown. The others including “I Know What You Did Last Summer” — all on the heap. They have one big Christmas movie, an action comedy called “Anaconda,” with Jack Black and Paul Rudd. Not promising.
Meantime, Sony Pictures Classics — the quality part of the company — has about a half dozen excellent films coming including “Blue Moon” with possible Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke in the role of his life, “A Private Life,” with Jodie Foster speaking French, and Oscar buzzed “Nuremberg” with Russell Crowe and Rami Malek.
PS Don’t know if Sony loaded the “BBBJ” premiere with influencers the way they did “Caught Stealing.” It didn’t help the latter movie much.
