Waste of time

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I really respect and admire every good movie no matter whats it about and this is not a good movie. The only reason anyone should see it is to look at Keanu Reeves tho I've never seen him act so bad. The film looks nice the photography is nice and soundtrack is nice but the story is way too cheesy and I've only seen the first 30 minutes of it, it pretty much makes you loose interest after the first ten minutes. OK thats it I said it all now how the hell am i supposed to fill I'm 5 more lines in order to submit this review? Well umm interesting thing is Keanu gets off the train 101 which is also the number of his room in the matrix. And usually hes really good in romantic leads but here I didn't feel any chemistry. Actually Im surprised to see Anthony Quinn in a movie like that. I don't know what they tried to do with this they're mixing in all kinds of subplots which may work out but it didn't.

I saw this film when it first opened many years ago, and liked it a lot. It's a film that can be enjoyed both on the big and small screen; the former to revel in the gorgeous cinematography while the latter because of its intimate story. The lush music score adds to the glorious work overall. Where were all the Oscar nominations?!? Anyway, i watched it again the other day on TV and that rekindled my passion for this movie. People like to unjustly dumb-down Keanu Reeves; all i want to say is Keanu has not allowed himself to be typecast. He has done comedy (Bill & Ted, Parenthood, Something's Gotta Give); romance (Walk in the Clouds, Sweet November, The Lake House); drama (River's Edge, Devil's Advocate); action (Speed, Matrix, Chain Reaction), and Shakespeare (Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing). I really can't think of a more canny actor.

When you put Anthony Quinn and Giancarlo Giannini together, you expect some magic. These are two GIANTS of the screen from Europe who have put together some of the most memorable performances on film. I think they could read the dictionary and make it sound important.Poor Keanu Reeves. His scenes with these two cinematic giants just showed how really out of his depth he was. He seems like an earnest guy, and he has found some roles that suit him, (The Matrix series.) but this was WAY over his head. If they had found someone else for the role, I think they could have pulled it off. That and.....The end? REALLY?! The story was quite a stretch from the start, but I felt like they kept it moving along, and there were some well written scenes. But when they set everything on fire at the end, it was just dumb and ridiculous.I will say this is one of the prettiest movies you will ever see. It's a bit spoiled by too much CGI and enhanced trickery. My guess is they got tired of waiting for nature to come up with some beautiful sunsets for them. But the rest of the cinematography is really good.For romantics only. (And REALLY big Keanu fans!)

In terms of what "A Walk in the Clouds" does right and wrong, it's like "Memoirs of a Geisha," a dissimilar romance that came out a decade later. The acting is great. The cinematography is breathtaking. The film works with pure magic. But there's a big problem: the screenplay is terrible.Paul Sutton (Keanu Reeves) is a war hero returning from the Pacific to be reunited with a girl he married "just so I could have someone to write to" (Debra Messing). Realizing that he's entered into a nightmare, he resumes his job as a chocolate salesman. On a bus to Sacremento for his job, he meets Victoria Aragon (Aitana Sanchez-Guijon), a Mexican beauty who is pregnant and unmarried. This would be troubling for anyone, but Victoria's father, Alberto (Giancarlo Giannini) is so traditional he makes Jerry Falwell look positively liberal. Because Paul is such a nice guy, he agrees to pose as her husband for a day, then leave her, which would hopefully solve the problem. Of course, they fall in love, which makes the situation even more complicated.The acting is solid. Many people give Keanu Reeves a hard time about his performances, and that's a little unfair. True, he's no Sean Penn, and I doubt that anyone will mention his name and "Oscar" in the same sentence any time soon, but given the right role, he can be effective. This was true of "Speed," "The Matrix," and "The Devil's Advocate," which I consider his best performance. "A Walk in the Clouds" should be among that list. It's easily the weakest of the three, but his performance is not. Paul is so immensely likable that it would turn the movie into a case of sugar shock, except that Reeves keeps Paul so genuine that it is impossible to not like him. His co-star, Aitana Sanchez-Guijon, is solid, although their chemistry is more of the "great friends" variety, not "star-crossed lovers." The other main actors, Giancarlo Giannini and Anthony Quinn, are excellent. Giannini is Oscar-worthy as Alberto. He's rigidly traditional, but it's his love of his family that makes him so. Ironically, however, it makes him blind to the needs of others. His father, Don Pedro (Quinn), is like the rest of his family: wise and more open. He always on hand to give advice on love and marriage to the would-be husband. He is also present in a hilarious scene where he gets Paul (and himself) very drunk and has him sing a traditional Mexican courting song outside Victoria's window.Alfonso Arau made the art-house hit, "Like Water for Chocolate," a film that I haven't seen, but is in my Netflix queue (and has been for some time). The middle part is magic, and it's Arau's talent that speaks to that. Unfortunately, the beginning is clunky, and the ending is completely over-the-top. Not all of this can be blamed on Arau, however. It's his first mainstream American film, so he was probably forced to make some concessions at the behest of the producers. However, even they should have realized that some of the lines needed to be rewritten.Overall, it works, but not as well as you'd hope.