Charlie St. Cloud (2010)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Charlie st. cloud is a dramatic movie nevertheless, however it is not sad enough to give you that good cry other movies do. The plots twists in the movie are not dramatic at all and is overall pretty boring. The movie has good intentions but didn't fufill the tear jerking quality viewers who want a good cry get

Zac Efron delivered a magnificent performance. He is definitely more than just the guy who was in the High School Musical movies. The story took me off guard and touched my heart with his devotion to his brother. Coming from someone who has lost someone, this story made every emotion possible flutter to the surface: sadness, hope, love, anger at fate, and desire to move forward. The grief that Zac Efron portrayed in the story is so accurate and so beautifully acted out. The brother, Sam (played by Charlie Tahan), was so precious. This movie over all was a rewarding film to watch, and a definite keeper. Congratulations Zac and Charlie for a stellar performance.

The story builds the background solid enough although takes quite long until we see the main concept settles in. And even after that, the main conflict doesn't even really begin until up about four tenths of the movie's duration. But then again, the movie did nicely in telling a mystery with a cooled down and less tense fashion. The flash backs and scream voices help greatly to hold the whole mystery aura altogether due to the overly dominant drama aspect of it. Also I like the fact that at the end the story is about God's second chance to a selected person. Zac Efron did nice in his role here. He can depict the whole character of a good brother very nicely, although I feel that he may have to work more on his facial expression usage. Amanda Crew balances the movie nicely with her role here, and so did Charlie Tahan.

There are many parallels to other twisty, turning, "are they alive or dead?" films of this genre that probably do it at lot better but Burr Steers effort is undeniably entertaining. He has some great acting from Charlie Tahan in particular to raise the rating a notch or two too.The opening is neatly crafted as back story explaining how brothers Charlie (Efron) and Sam (Tahan) are as inseparable in death as in life. Fast forward five years and we have the revelation of a gift Charlie may, or may not, have. The story takes over from there as a charmingly meandering exploration of promises, principles, reasons and deeply held beliefs. Zac Efron gives a goodish but slightly uneven presentation of the "man with a mission", his own worse enemy, but also one of his word. There are moments when Efron is very convincing but there are others when he seems to be going through the motions. What Charlie Tahan succeeds in doing is taking the simple and raw and keeping it simple and raw, something Efron needs to work on.Amanda Crew is good as the romantic interest and there are a couple of cameos from Kim Basinger and Ray Liotta.Now I will not plot spoil to reveal the bigger flaws in the script but I was not expecting a revelation to be made in quite the way it was, and at the time was left thinking - that's stupid it should have been done differently without spoiling the story - but that is show business for you! Overall it is a worthwhile film with a reasonable point to make. I give it seven out of ten.