Were you a famous mainstream mediocre fillum critic, how many stars do you reckon you’d reward a rom-com that’s sadly short of laughs?

Two? Two and a half at the most? You’d surely have to figure that would be about the maximum, right, bearing in mind the genre is romantic comedy, not a comedic romance? The emphasis is on comedy, shirley?

Well, The Sun-Herald’s Sanda Hall recently gave three-and-a-half stars for Ticket to Paradise with this telling observation: “Sadly there aren’t enough laughs along the way”.

Ever since I appointed myself as The Bug’s fillum reviewer more than 30 years ago, I have taken a special interest in the ratings reviewers give flicks and how or if those ratings bear any relationship whatsoever to the words they’ve used to evaluate the project.

Over that time, it has been far from uncommon that reviews have included gems such as “slow-paced and boring”, “poor character development”, “a good idea that lost its way”, “below-par acting”, “fifty minutes too long”, A great book ruined”, “I fell asleep so can anyone tell me how it finished?” blah, fucking, blah and yet you glance up the top to see stars galore.

So my gut feeling is that Sandra Hall has gotten something really, really wrong here.

And if she can do that having seen the movie, why can’t I review it without having seen it and come up with an assessment that might also be way off the mark yet just as valid?

Confession: I did take a look at the trailer. And if you work on that old theory that trailers show the best bits, Ticket to Paradise is in real, real trouble.

And I did read somewhere that it’s fairly clear early on that the divorced couple played by George Clooney and Julia Roberts are, deep down, still deeply in love. Well, hit me over the head with a bundle of mother’s favourite Mills and Boons novels! Who would have thunk it!

The bickering overweds bump into each other as they fly to Bali (the movie was shot mainly in Queensland) to convince their daughter not to marry some local fella.

Yep, it’s got turkey written all over it despite the star power of these two giants of Hollywood.

This is the first time, by the way, that these two have paired up for a rom-com. It will probably be the last. It’s very Mary Whitehouse of me not having seen the thing but I’ve just got this gut feeling there’s no real chemistry between the actors.

They seem to be rushing through takes as if they’re both anxious to get back to the triple mango daiquiri and basket of calamari rings they had just started to tuck into before being called down to the beach set.

Unfair? Of course it bloody well is seeing I haven’t seen it!

But I’ll stick with my gut feeling that Ticket to Paradise is no One Fine Day, the charming 1996 rom-com where Clooney and Michelle Pfieffer sizzled opposite each other. Has there every been a funnier scene in movies than when, right at the end, Clooney falls asleep waiting for the Pfeiff to freshen herself up for a little bit of humpy-pumpy? Men all around the world laughed their head off over that one!

Or how about the Pfeiff and Al Pacino who really hit it off five years earlier in Frankie and Johnny, another wonderfully warm and engaging rom-com.

They had heart because the storylines were solid, centred on their characters and didn’t have to rely on a corny “rushing to save the daughter from herself” storyline.

So why did Sandra Hall give Ticket to Paradise the three-and-a-half star treatment?
Overawed, perhaps, by the star power on screen?

This fillum critic loves watching the very average rom-coms that pop up on Netfliz and Stan all the time. A lot of the appeal, as the basic Mills and Boon template is played out, is that the actors are often unknowns or not well knowns trwying their very best. I’ve rewatched one where a New York chef travels to some dump called Brisbane to close a cafe where, gosh, can anyone guess, a handsome young fella is the head chef there. So many misunderstandings before the kissie-wissie fadeout.

It helped that it was shot in Shorncliffe and just about every scene showed places I roamed as a child as dad slept on Shorncliffe pier, peacefully unaware that his rod ratchet was howling away as a gull took his line across to Woody Point. In recent years, I lived opposite the cafe used for the shoot. The yard behind the cafe – well, more a fish and chip shop back then – was where one night the missus and I heard some people laughing as they played soccer with a murder victim’s decapitated head. Ah, the fond memories of Shorncliffe as a child and as a resident!

My best guess is that some time soon when I’ve got nothing to do, I won’t be at all ashamed to watch Romance on the Menu once again whereas I strongly suspect that when I finally get around to seeing Ticket to Paradise, I’ll just be thankful I didn’t pay $17 to see it and I’ll know exactly why I won’t be watching it again.

Too harsh? If you’ve seen Ticket to Paradise, let me know where I’ve got it wrong!

Don Gordon-Brown

At top: You’d be laughing your heads off too if you were being paid millions like George Clooney and Julia Roberts were to laze around the Whitsundays for a while being fussed over between takes that stretched their talents not one iota.