Winter's Tale Rated: PG-13

Barbara Says:
This one has some good star power. It has Colin Farrell as a  thief in long ago New York working for Russell Crowe .  Crowe is a truly evil man with a horde of evil henchmen to do his bidding. It has Jessica Brown Findlay as the beautiful young woman who Farrell's character falls in love with when he goes to rob her house.  Only he finds she is dying, and soon too.  William Hurt plays her father who only wants her to be happy during her last days.  The spider in the web is Crowe`s mean nature because he wants to kill Farrell and now the woman he loves too.  We soon come to see this is a movie about good and evil. It is about the demons and the angels here on Earth. About the fight to win against each other in the battle for human souls. It has a white horse who is an angel sent to help Farrells character win against Crowe.  Someone is going to perform a miracle and Crowe plus the devil, played by Will Smith, want to stop it from happening. Only they misunderstand who is going to have the miracle and how far in the future that miracle will happen. It has some beautiful scenes taken during the winter and a love story saddened by lost. It has its start in the late 1800`s and on to the early 1900's, but then travels to 2014 for the finish. So fantasy is the core of this movie as well as the good against evil.  Out of 10 I have to give it a 6 simply because of the religious angle that sweeps through the whole movie.  It has its moments and is a watchable film.  It is a movie to go see if you are religious or just need something to do.

Cat Says:

I have to say I was more than a little hesitant to go see this movie. I figured I could either go with it or there would be a whole lot of eye-rolling going on. Turns out it was somewhere in the middle. 

The story is a full out fairytale about Good and Evil and how we all have some of each in us but how we can choose which to give in to and how we use it for ill or good. There is a Demon and his minions (no, not the cute ones) as well as an Angel, miracles, time travel and even Lucifer (played by Will Smith in modern clothing). The whole movie plays like an off-Broadway play. So if you go into the movie knowing those details then you may be able to get past the eye-rolling.

The movie begins with Peter Lake (played by Colin Farrell who seems to have mostly abandoned his bad boy persona for a more romantic one) who works for the Demon, Pearly Soames (played by Russell Crowe...warning, this role won't elevate his career any) as a thief. He's been raised by Soames after his own parents, denied entry into America, are forced to set him in a sail boat to float into New York from just off shore. But, at this point, Peter has decided to make a few mini scores and then get out of town, with Soames chasing him. The first encounter with Soames, cornering Peter in an alley, is the first time you are made aware that there is a whole lot of magic and evil going on here. Peter escapes and finds himself at the home of the very ill and dying Beverly Penn, (played sweetly by Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay) thinking he's going to make one more hit before leaving town. He finds love instead. Soames gets wind of this and starts to panic that Peter will use his one miracle to save Beverly. 

Now, not wanting to reveal all of the twists and turns I will just say that Soames catches up to Peter and tries to kill him by throwing him into the East River. Instead it simply transports Peter to modern day where Soames is still very much in power and Peter is frantically trying to remember who he is and why he keeps drawing a red-headed woman on the sidewalks of Central Park. As his memory starts to return to him he ends up entangled in the lives of a woman and her terminally ill daughter (played by Jennifer Connolly and Ripley Sobo) as the final act in the battle between good and evil puts them all in danger and Peter left wondering how his miracle can finally save someone he loves.

If you are already rolling your eyes just reading this review then perhaps you should wait till it's on cable on a rainy afternoon to give it a try. But if you love fantasy movies and the whole battle of good and evil (and need another reason to loathe Russell Crowe) then head out for a 2 hour diversion. I give it a 6.5 out of 10. I might watch it again on a rainy afternoon but won't be heading out to see it again.