A MALE REVIEW OF AGE OF ADALINE STARRING BLAKE LIVELY

2015 rating: **1/2

In most cases, if a man found out his one true love, the love of his life, his beloved soul-mate would remain, as he aged, a beautiful 29-year-old woman, he might not tell the Feds on her… But that’s for another movie, and wishful thinking…

In AGE OF ADALINE, the title character has the same problem as your average vampire… The entire world ages around her… That of course calls attention since her identification says, for example, 50 and she still looks… fantastic. And with a daughter twice her age (Ellen Burstyn) and a whiny “perfect guy” out to land a date in the modern era, Blake Lively’s ingénue has to, as usual, move on before her heart gets attached, and vice versa…

Young Harrison Ford clone

Thus the first half wastes a potentially intriguing science-fiction aspect buffered by a mainstream chick flick template, eventually veering into a creative version of Nick Sparks territory: the young couple juxtaposed with an old couple… And that’s when things pick up, just a bit…

Harrison Ford is the father of Adaline’s new beau, and it turns out he had dated her thirty years ago when she was the same exact age… Flashbacks occur, providing what River Phoenix in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE failed to achieve: a completely realistic looking young Harrison (reboot Han Solo and Indy Jones, anyone?). At the point when Ford’s William realizes Adaline is not her granddaughter but actually herself, we have an 11th hour tear-jerking finale that overrides the frivolous romance with Ford’s son, played by an uninteresting and petulantly persistent Michiel Huisman, way over his head as a leading man. While looking the part, his acting seems more Hallmark Channel than Motion Picture.  

So if Adaline just told the truth the first time, her original true love, who she seemed way more into during the 1960's flashbacks and present time conversations, probably would have understood...