Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

hyped garbage

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Plot In A Paragraph: Ben Holmes (Ben Affleck) a professional book-jacket blurbologist, is trying to get to Savannah for his wedding. He just barely catches the last plane, but a seagull flies into the engine as the plane is taking off. So he is forced to hitch a ride with an attractive but eccentric woman named Sara (Sandra Bullock) Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock make an attractive romantic pairing, and have a certain amount of chemistry. Michael Fairrman Bridget Thurman, Moira Tierney, Steve Zahn, Ronny Cox and Richard Schiff are all good in supporting roles. The plot moves a long at a good pace, their are a few laughs to be had and the ending is a surprise too.I don't understand the hate that Affleck gets, as I usually enjoy his movies that vary in tone, style and subject matter drastically 'Company Men' or 'Armageddon' 'Argo' and 'Hollywoodland' or the (what I consider the under rated 'Jersey Girl' I enjoy him in all of them. As for Bullock, she remains one of the most talented and beautiful women in movies, and her ladylike sexiness is in rare supply. Any movie becomes promising just by having her name in it's cast.

Forces of Nature is competently acted and professionally delivered, but there is no spark of difference in storytelling or chemistry between its leads. Even after the first forty minutes of the film, when Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock haven't really drummed up anything remarkable, the film still heavily emphasizes both characters' qualities and their prime differences rather than ground them into reality like the film should. We still must be reminded that Sandra Bullock is different and free-spirited and Ben Affleck is straight-laced and getting married, but we don't get any more involved in these characters' personalities or their particular relationship other than it (a) is predicated off of the tired "opposites attract" philosophy and (b) that it really shouldn't be happening.Because of this, Ben Affleck's Ben Holmes and Sandra Bullock's Sarah Lewis feel like bland caricatures and not identifiable people. This is an issue when you have two characters that accentuate simple personality traits and those simple traits are the only methods of which we can define these characters. One is different, the other is a straight-shooter; these are very basic terms to describe people we've just spent one-hundred and six minutes with.Regarding the plot - as if I really need to - Ben is getting married and is on a flight home to Savannah, Georgia to attend the wedding. His plane suffers a crash before taking off and now, with his fear of flying even larger than it once was, must find another way back to Savannah. He meets Sarah, who must arrive to Savannah as soon as she can as well. Ben and Sarah decide to take an alternate method home together, which only results in more cockamamie circumstances happening to them over time. Ben, of course, being the cleaned-up fellow he is, hates when things detour from his original plan or intention, but Sarah, in the meantime, doesn't fret over small things. She loves flying by the seat of her pants, which may explain the problems she faces now with a custody battle.Affleck and Bullock, at this current point in time, didn't really need to establish their credibility in films. Affleck had already done both Chasing Amy and Good Will Hunting, two phenomenal films, with Sandra Bullock appearing in Speed, a fine example of a truly tense and exciting thriller. Both actors had experienced carrying their own portions in a film in some way, shape, or form, and on that note, you'd think that Affleck and Bullock would be able to concoct believable chemistry with one another. However, Marc Lawrence's writing doesn't leave much to be desired in terms of development in their chemistry.If there's a light in Forces of Nature's smothering sameness, it's the atypical direction Bronwen Hughes takes for conducting the romantic comedy. Hughes seems to have an appreciation for visuals, nature (maybe hinted in the titled?), and natural lighting, making Forces of Nature a surprising experience for the eyes. I recommend watching some portions of it on mute so you can appreciate the beautiful lighting and cinematography (done very nicely by Elliot Davis and David Stockton) and not the goofy dialog that Affleck and Bullock engage in.Starring: Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock. Directed by: Bronwen Hughes.

Take two Hollywood performers at their peak, place them in a romantic comedy loosely inspired by the riotous Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and watch the fireworks FAIL to ignite. Ben Affleck is a rigid businessman who finds his efforts to make it home to Savannah in time for his nuptials with Maura Tierney constantly confounded by the weather, mechanical failures, coincidence and the temptations provided by wacky free spirit Sandra Bullock, who keeps getting thrown together with him.Singularly Bullock and Affleck can be very entertaining, but together they do not have much spark between them. They come off more as a brother/sister pairing than potential romantics. Part of the problem is certainly the writing. Affleck's character is written as such a stick and Bullock is stuck playing such an offbeat stock character that the audience is never allowed to warm up to them. The less said about Tierney as Affleck's colorless fiancée, the better. Their misadventures grow tedious fairly quickly and events are not helped by Bronwen Hughes' uneven direction. Hughes either concludes scenes before they have built up a head of steam or allows them to drag on forever. For instance, the events at the hotel where Affleck and Bullock really start to bond and then run into acquaintances of his runs on and on and on. Meanwhile, a potentially hilarious sequence where, to earn money, Affleck reluctantly has to do a strip tease at a gay bar abruptly concludes right when it was starting to hit its comic high point. And these are only two examples. Hughes does not seem to understand what works and what does not. As such, we get a romance that is not particularly romantic, and a comedy with some scattered laughs that dry up long before the film has reached the two-thirds mark. I would venture to say there is not a smile to be had anywhere in the final third of this film.Another issue that fails is the ending. It probably sounds very mature on paper and it is certainly a non-Hollywood climax, but it is incredibly dull and renders the majority of the preceding scenes pointless. In a romantic comedy, one should never introduce a female character that is more colorful and appealing than the woman with whom the leading man ends up with (and vice versa). That is exactly what the writers have done here. They manipulate two characters together for romance and then in the final moments of the film, they have Affleck do an abrupt about-face and declare his undying love for Tierney, while a wise-beyond-her-years Bullock slinks off alone into the sunset. Affleck needs to sell us wholesale that the sight of Tierney alone has made him fall back in love with her (after a scant moment before he was planning on breaking off their engagement) and it is beyond both the actor and the screenplay to convince the audience of this. Rather than making it seem like Affleck is a great guy, it makes him seem more than a tad fickle. The next time he is stuck away from his beloved Tierney for a day or so, is he going to have another crisis of love? Does Tierney need to be in his line of sight in order for him to maintain the love affair with her? The entire scenario is just plain foolish. Affleck and Bullock have been much better elsewhere, and fans would be advised to find those other efforts.

Both Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock are extremely appealing, attractive people. The idea of an out-of-control wild woman and a straight-laced businessman (okay, "jacket copywriter") getting together was a fun idea. But, sorry, that's about as far as the fun went.I felt every single emotion in this film was manipulated, either through heavy-handed music (the scene where Ben as "Ben" turns on the radio in the cheap hotel room and hears, but of course, "Love the One You're With") or pound-over-the-head foreshadowing (Ben's fiancée's old boyfriend). We are asked to believe that Sandra and Ben are going to stand on top of a train and shout into the open wilderness, and then, when the train locks itself to the next section, that they don't go flying off into the river below to certain deaths.We are asked to believe that, when desperate for money, they just happen to walk into the one gay bar in the sleaziest part of town and that, of course, Ben will be forced to strip for money to buy a cheap car to take them back to their destination.We are asked to believe many things that are far too coincidental. So, most of the movie doesn't work.But the main problem is: In the beginning of the movie when Ben and "Sarah" (Sandra") are on the plane which runs into trouble before it even takes off due to some retarded seagulls, everyone is roughed up a little and Ben accidentally smashes Sarah's head with his notebook computer. Later, after everyone has been safely evacuated, Ben is hauling Sarah over his arm, getting her to a doctor or stretcher, or whatever the hell he thought he was going to do.Then, when he calls his fiancée to let her know he is okay, Sarah rushes the phone booth (but three minutes before she had been on a stretcher) and tells him, "You saved my life!" and kisses him madly. I'm sorry, what did he do to "save" her life? Nothing. So, the "inciting event" of the movie fails.Also, the endless jokes about marriage being a prison, and loving one person is like wearing the same clothes for the next 25 years... they wear thin quickly.Yes, Sandra is funny. She is glittering and gorgeous and has a movie star face and knows how to deliver a punch line (and a good swift kick if needed); yes, Ben is cute and adorable and he always looks like everything that comes down the line is a surprise and that he'd rather be in an episode of "Leave it to Beaver," but, oh well, he is thinking, "This is life and I guess I better learn how to catch the curveballs!"... but, that aside, who cares? The ending was absolutely unacceptable; I didn't buy his speech to his fiancée for one second, nor did I think all the endless babbling about meeting someone and loving someone at the end was necessary. I can't believe the test audiences did not all at once storm out of the theater when the "big surprise" is revealed at the end. I was extremely disappointed. Another thing that was truly upsetting was, couldn't they think of ANY other name for Ben Affleck's character except "Ben"? How pathetic. Yes, it was a clever idea to combine "force of nature" with natural disaster and with Sandy Bullock's big, fabulous personality and gorgeous glamor girl looks. But ultimately, this movie fails on almost every level. I'm really sorry to say so because I'm a big Sandy fan, and am beginning to appreciate Ben as well. Well, at least they're both pretty to look at.