Fool's Gold

We Got Abs

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson paired up in a chick flick some 5 years back in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, with the latter making the former fall in love with her, and then having to shrug him off as part of a social experiment, only to find herself really loving him instead. In Fool's Gold, our couple reunites, with Kate Hudson's Tess going down deja-vu avenue in wanting to divorce husband Finn, played by McConaughey because she just had enough of his lack of keeping to promises, which even a fantastic sex life couldn't help.

It's no surprise that movies such as Fool's Gold continue to be made, and the formula is pretty no brainer as well. Put in some tempting opportunity for prospecting sunken treasure in the depths of the seas from some aged old ship, smack together good looking leads (so that they can get away with everything, including a bad story) who don't mind bearing their bodies in trunks of bikinis for the most parts of the movie, and pour in plenty of water, jokes, and goon type characters as baddies.

Finn, as a hero, is almost always bumming through life, and making the wrong deals with the wrong kinds of persons. His latest expedition, while managing to gain small results, offends his financier Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart), who's after his hide for making him lose money. His soon to be ex-wife works as a stewart onboard the luxury yacht of multi-millionaire Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), who soon finds himself charmed by the couple's enthusiasm and passion for treasure hunting, and backs them in their latest quest to locate the lost treasure known as the Queen's Dowry, where 40 chests of jewellery with emeralds and rubies the size of a human fists. And the quest is not made easy when there's competition in the form of Moe Fitch (Ray Winstone without CGI to buff him up to Beowulf proportions), and Big Bunny's goons with an injection of foreign talent.

For some parts, this looked like National Treasure without the location jet-setting and the cryptic clues. There's a hidden treasure somewhere that our heroes have to dig deep from clues provided from the past, in knowing characters, their histories and motivations, and of course with goons constantly hot on their heels doing things the easier way without working the brains. However, Fool's Gold had loaded itself with too many characters in its ensemble, and as it expectedly turns out, everyone else besides Hudson and McConaughey are in supporting, one dimensional caricatures.

You have a rapper and his posse, a pair of gay chefs, rival treasure plunders with history going way back, and a tycoon and his daughter whom he's trying to connect with. If I should choose my favourite character amongst all of them, it's gotta be that bimbotic heiress (Alexis Dziena from Broken Flowers) probably cloned from Paris Hilton's genes. In fact, some of her lines are so genuinely stupid, that they somehow turn out really hilarious, and the delivery by that wide-eyed ingenue, clueless face, gave those lame jokes an added boost.

Standard action adventure fare with predictable outcome. Don't go into this movie expecting anything more, or you'll be making a foolish choice.