Starring: Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Rufus Sewell, Paul Bettany, and Timothy Dalton

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rated PG-13 for violence and brief strong language

Rico: The Tourist is a remake of a 2005 French film. You don’t have to worry about subtitles; just focus on the charms of Angelina Jolie.

Joyce: And, of course, the many charms of Johnny Depp, who plays a college math teacher and tourist in Venice, and whom Jolie’s character sets up as a dupe in order to catch a clever criminal who has stolen billions of dollars.

Joyce: As the plot progresses, everyone on both sides of the law are following and trying to catch them. There is a thrilling chase: not in a car, but in a boat. Hey, it’s set in Venice.

Rico: Jolie’s character turns heads everywhere she goes. Glam–glam–glam! Oh, Paris and Venice come off pretty well, too.

Joyce: Apparently Jolie and Depp both wanted to make an old fashioned type of romantic thriller that their children could watch. Well, they’ve succeeded.

Rico: It’s interesting to note that the lead Jolie plays was originally cast as Charlize Theron, and Depp’s part was supposed to be played by Tom Cruise or Sam Worthington. Both dropped out. Even more interesting is the fact that Lasse Hallstrom (The Shipping News, Chocolat) was set to direct, but German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others) took over.

Jolie is gorgeous, the film is gorgeous, and that seems to be all that what the producers wanted. Don’t worry about the plot. It doesn’t exist.

***1/2

Joyce: This is a lot of fun to watch because of the stars alone. If you add up the sequences in the story, it really doesn’t work. I can give it only ***