At first, I was quite hesitant to watch this movie because one of the leads is Robert Pattinson (no offense to Rob Pat's and Twilight fans out there!!)... However, after hearing such great reviews from a few of my friends (Ridhwan referred it as "The Titanic" of 2011), I decided to give the movie a try... Well, after all, the great Christoph Waltz and cute Reese Witherspoon are also in it...

THE STORY

At first, life seemed so perfectly planned for Jacob Jankowsky (Robert Pattinson)... That was until he lost his parents in a road accident and also everything else including a place to stay... Having nothing burdening his shoulders, he decided to wander on foot to seek a job at strangers' land... Along his way, he ended up being on board of a train without permission... The train was no ordinary train though... It was a circus tour of The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth... In order for him to avoid being thrown off the train, he needed to prove himself worthy to the circus captain, August (Christoph Waltz)... For he had been studying veterinary, he was made circus vet... However, all was not well for Jacob as he continuously ran into trouble with August because of his hard headed attitude... Making it worse was the fact that he had fallen in love with August's wife, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) and those two had been romancing with each other after the arrival of Rosie, the elephant...

The movie is actually a story in a story where it was told by the old Jacob Jankowsky to a circus crew after he was found lost on a parking lot during a pouring rain... 

THE POSITIVE SIDE

Christoph Waltz

If u don't know Christoph Waltz, then probably u haven't seen how awesome he was as a Nazi general in The Inglorious Basterds... He also played the bad guy in Seth Rogen's The Green Hornet... I guess he's fit to play bad characters because in this movie, he is a psycho maniac... The part that touched me the most is when he beat up Rosie... I was like, "NOOOOO!!!"... I wanted to kick his gut until he cried and I'm confident that the rest of the audience felt the same way... Another fucked up scene is when he asked Jacob Jawkonsky to feed a lion... Damn disturbing... This shows how effective his acting was...

Robert Pattinson

Surprisingly, Rob did good in this movie... This kinda prove that despite how terrible the Twilight series are, Robert Pattinson actually can act... I was probably blinded by the awful story line that I couldn't see his potential as an actor... I could almost see Leonardo Dicaprio in him... He effectively portrayed anger, stubbornness and naivety of a teenager in the dog eat dog world... If given time and opportunities, I'm sure he would bloom to be a great actor... Yeay~




The story is nothing new - a love triangle - but the way the plot goes is the thing that make the movie interesting... This movie is very engaging because there are so much portrayal of mixed emotions and romance and not to mention, it can be a bit suspenseful at times...Kudos to Francis Lawrence, the director...

I love the setting of this movie where it really shows how mysterious and magical a circus can be in the depression era... Trained animals, freaky people, and acrobatics... All the make up, silly acts and surprises... Simply wonderful!






My girlfriend adores Reese Witherspoon and even she agrees that in the movie, Reese did not deliver as well as we hoped she could... Ridhwan said to me, "Fahmi, she's just cute... She cannot act..."... Yeah, she failed to portray the right emotions in most of the scenes... I was kinda disappointed because for me, she kinda ruined the movie...




Water for Elephants is indeed a good romance movie... In case u dont know, it was adapted from a novel by Sara Gruen... I bought the novel for girl last week and so far, I can guess that she's happy with the book... Anyway, the adaptation is great... I love the pace, the emotions portrayed and the settings, make up and costumes... It's so beautiful that I remember my girl saying, "Watching this movie is better than watching most romantic comedies..."

One question though... Why is it called WATER for Elephants? I can recall a few scenes of the elephant being fed with whiskey... Hmm... Anyone care to explain?



3.5 out of 5 stars...