SPOILERS AHEAD:
First of all, I really liked the general concept of this film. The idea of a young Englishmen falling in love with a native girl from a British colony surely isn't that original, but it hasn't been overused either.
Furthermore I hoped to get a glimpse of the life in British colonies at that time (especially the social interacting between the British colonial rulers and the native people) and, of course, Jessica Alba.
Well, for those primarily interested in the latter one: Yes, her character has nude scenes, but no, they obviously aren't performed by Jessica Alba. Speaking of that: In my opinion the body double did not even fit Jessica's "size"; they could have done a lot better at this point.
As I stated initially, I really liked this films premise, but the execution comes close to the worst you could have made out of it.
First of all: The movie is fractioned. While this doesn't has to be necessarily bad, each fraction gets it's own little climax, whilst there's nowhere a main climax on sight. Even that could work, if those little climax' would do their job, unfortunately they don't. That's mainly because the film doesn't spend the time to develop them, instead it rushes to get a climax done in order to start another one.
For example: John's "I don't want to have sex unmarried"-dance at the very beginning (lasted maybe 5 minutes and was resolved by pure horniness), their trip to the dying jungle people ("oh look, it's because of the poison, let's tell them and go home"), the matter of John's first departure from Sarawak, his relation to his wife, the attempted murder and death trial afterwards, Henry's relation to Selima, (and so on, and so on). Everything seemed flat, rushed and undeveloped.
For no obvious they made a plot-driven film out of a people-story. That can't work out. The ending concludes this greatly, you virtually could hear the director's thoughts: "Oh, well, we've 2 minutes and some budget left. Let's bring in the bad guy with a gun".
On the pro-side the native/Englishmen relations are done quiet nicely, and not every character is stereotypical; I especially enjoyed the role of Cecil for that matter. The cinematography could've been worse but never reached the potential it doubtlessly had. I'd rank Simon Boswell's score slightly but definitely above average. Speaking of Jessica Alba's performance, well: Her role consists mainly of walking around and looking pretty, she did that without getting injured and if you've seen her in "Idle Hands", that's worth something.
At the end I saw a movie whose creators couldn't fill the (very solid) plot with life. That's particularly sad, since I'd could've been a great film.
First of all, I really liked the general concept of this film. The idea of a young Englishmen falling in love with a native girl from a British colony surely isn't that original, but it hasn't been overused either.
Furthermore I hoped to get a glimpse of the life in British colonies at that time (especially the social interacting between the British colonial rulers and the native people) and, of course, Jessica Alba.
Well, for those primarily interested in the latter one: Yes, her character has nude scenes, but no, they obviously aren't performed by Jessica Alba. Speaking of that: In my opinion the body double did not even fit Jessica's "size"; they could have done a lot better at this point.
As I stated initially, I really liked this films premise, but the execution comes close to the worst you could have made out of it.
First of all: The movie is fractioned. While this doesn't has to be necessarily bad, each fraction gets it's own little climax, whilst there's nowhere a main climax on sight. Even that could work, if those little climax' would do their job, unfortunately they don't. That's mainly because the film doesn't spend the time to develop them, instead it rushes to get a climax done in order to start another one.
For example: John's "I don't want to have sex unmarried"-dance at the very beginning (lasted maybe 5 minutes and was resolved by pure horniness), their trip to the dying jungle people ("oh look, it's because of the poison, let's tell them and go home"), the matter of John's first departure from Sarawak, his relation to his wife, the attempted murder and death trial afterwards, Henry's relation to Selima, (and so on, and so on). Everything seemed flat, rushed and undeveloped.
For no obvious they made a plot-driven film out of a people-story. That can't work out. The ending concludes this greatly, you virtually could hear the director's thoughts: "Oh, well, we've 2 minutes and some budget left. Let's bring in the bad guy with a gun".
On the pro-side the native/Englishmen relations are done quiet nicely, and not every character is stereotypical; I especially enjoyed the role of Cecil for that matter. The cinematography could've been worse but never reached the potential it doubtlessly had. I'd rank Simon Boswell's score slightly but definitely above average. Speaking of Jessica Alba's performance, well: Her role consists mainly of walking around and looking pretty, she did that without getting injured and if you've seen her in "Idle Hands", that's worth something.
At the end I saw a movie whose creators couldn't fill the (very solid) plot with life. That's particularly sad, since I'd could've been a great film.