SansPretense

If cliches and corny lines made a movie, then August Rush would be considered one of the best! Unfortunately for the movie, those things tend to take away from a good movie (with few exceptions, one of which is Disney’s Enchanted, reviewed in the very next entry (how do you link it?), and what could have been a great movie like August Rush turns into nothing more than an entertaining couple of hours with just as many eye-rolling moments as heart-clinching.

Other than the too-many-cliches and corniness, the movie was good. Freddie Highmore plays Evan Taylor, an orphaned boy searching for his parents. His parents, Lyla (Keri Russell) and Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, both great musicians, had one great night together and were torn apart by Lyla’s father, more concerned with his daughter’s musicical career than happiness. Lyla finds out she is pregnant and eventually gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Her father tells her the baby didn’t survive and forges her name to give the boy up for adoption. Eleven years go by before Lyla learns the truth. By then, Evan, who runs away from foster care to look for his parents in New York City, is discovering his musical abilities. In short, the boy is a musical genius, and ends up changing his name (on the advice of “The Wizard” played by Robin Williams) to August Rush. The movie follows August on a musical journey of personal discovery and growth and his parents as they struggle with their own lives and personal realizations. Just as the movie shows how music connects us with the world around us, it also shows the power of timeless love.

I give the movie 3/5 stars. I want to point out that the last few movies I’ve seen before this were exceptionally good movies, and that a 3/5 rating, for me, is still a good movie worth seeing. So despite the criticism I’ve given this movie, it’s still a good movie.