Allied Review
I didn't know much about Allied but as soon as the trailer hit, it immediately grabbed my interest. It looked like a suspenseful spy thriller with a lot of emotion and heart. Plus, Robert Zemeckis tends to be a pretty solid and consistent director. Then the reviews started coming out. While they weren't overwhelmingly bad, they really tampered my excitement to see the film. I never like hearing things like "it's not bad but just ok" or "it could be an enjoyable cable watch." After that, I didn't think I'd be seeing this one in theaters but I was able to find a very cheap matinee for it and I figured I'd give it a shot.
With that out of the way, was this the action packed war drama its trailer promised? Did the critics get it wrong? I was rooting for this movie but unfortunately the reviews are pretty spot on. In all honesty, rotten tomatoes and sites like metacritic more often than not aren't in line with my opinions. If a movie is fresh I usually see it deserving that but a lot of times it gets too much praise in my eyes. Sometimes on the flip side, it gets ok reviews and I really like it. With Allied, the tomatometer is spot on at about a 60%. There is nothing glaringly wrong with the film. It's simply too generic.
Now there are some definite positives in the film. The acting is solid throughout and the general plot takes a creative approach to the classic World War II drama. I especially appreciated the scenes in Morocco. Although we've gotten films like Casablanca, the more exotic setting added an unfamiliar element that helped Allied stand apart from other Wold War II dramas. The best scenes of the movie are in this section and that's when I felt I was getting the spy movie that was promised(especially in a scene that ends in chaotic gunfire). There are definitely moments of suspense and the movie isn't as predictable as I was afraid it would be.
The negatives of this film stop it from being the unique war drama it could have been. If you've seen the trailers, you know the film is about a man unknowingly marrying a German spy and having to deal with its consequences. There hasn't really been a World War II film that follows a similar storyline. On paper and from the clips I saw, it seemed to open itself up to having complex layers that add depth to the film. However, the potential isn't met. First off, even if the overarching plot is creative, there are plenty of scenes with classic war movie tropes. The music is one of the most generic scores I've heard in recent memory and all in all the hype of the trailer did't match the film. It has spy and thriller elements that I appreciated, but it's mostly a love story. The love story could have still made for a solid movie but I didn't gravitate emotionally any characters. That's what stopped me from ever investing myself in what unravels on screen.
Like I said, the critics were pretty accurate with this one. I'm giving it a 6/10.
