A little less charming than you might expect with stars as charismatic and irresistible as Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany, Wimbledon is nonetheless an occasionally cute mutt of crossbreeding between sports movie and chick flick. A product of the rom-com team behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually, the story follows low-ranked, self-stymied tennis pro Peter Colt (Bettany, from A Knight's Tale and A Beautiful Mind) who finds his groove by falling in love with Lizzie Bradbury (Dunst), the rising-star queen troublemaker of women's tennis. But Wimbledon is far more about Peter than Lizzie, which is one of its shortcomings: although popping with personality, for all practical purposes Dunst is relegated to just being The Girl. The picture finds its best footing on the court, where Bettany provides a funny and perceptive internal dialogue as he pep-talks himself to surprising victories. Unfortunately, these scenes lead to a transparently fore-drawn, feel-good conclusion, and waiting for all the pieces (some of them highly improbable) to fall into place becomes tedious. Optional. [Note: Available in both widescreen and full screen versions, DVD extras include audio commentary by costar Paul Bettany and director Richard Loncraine, “A Look Inside” 10-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, “Welcome to the Club” featurette on tennis (3 min.), “Ball Control” featurette on special effects (5 min.), “Coach a Rising Star” featurette on training with tennis advisor consultant Pat Cash (3 min.), a trailer, and DVD-ROM features. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a so-so film.] (R. Blackwelder)
Wimbledon
Universal, 100 min., PG-13, VHS: $23.98, DVD: $29.98, Dec. 28 Volume 20, Issue 1
Wimbledon
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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