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Trust Weighted
Good
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90Trust Points
Spaceghost's Review
Summary - Very Good 3.5
When I first saw the trailers for this movie my immediate reaction was, “oh its another movie about how cute dogs are. I’ll pass.” But the wife is a dog lover and also a huge Jennifer Aniston fan, so I ended up making my way in to see this movie. Dead set into hating this movie from the beginning I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually pretty good. Is the dog cute? Yeah, but they really don’t spend too much time on that. Marley is not a “hey look at how cute this dog is even though he gets in trouble all the time”, he is more of an idea. He represents the chaos in life and how unpredictable things can be. You are never where you think you should be and you can either blame the dog, or you can embrace life and realize that the chaos is what brought you to where you are, and where you are is pretty damn good. The story in this movie was amazing and it is very genuine, thoughtful trip through life.
Acting - Good 3.0
Owen Wilson is usually very sarcastic and goofy and just not a serious dude by any means. I was impressed that there is another side to the man and after his somewhat recent personal struggles, this movie felt very honest for him. He wasn’t perfect, but it was good to see and a nice break from the norm.
Jennifer Aniston was also fairly decent. Its not as huge a departure for her as it was for Wilson, but it was fun to see. I think when the kids come into the picture, and the relationship between them is strained, it is very well captured. Unfortunately that’s about the relationship that was worth praising. Everything else was just kinda run of the mill movie stuff.
This is a film very much carried by the story. Though the acting doesn’t necessarily detract from the movie, you could have gotten by with any number of other actors just as well if not better.