Talk about "Wimbledon" here:
Review by: Breanne Derby
Plot Summary
"Wimbledon" tells the story of Peter Colt, a professional tennis player (played by Paul Bettany) who is past his prime and close to retirement. Peter intends to retire after this one last Wimbledon, a major tennis tournament held every year, in order to teach tennis to old women at a country club. During his last Wimbledon, Peter meets Lizzie Bradbury, a young tennis player (played by Kirsten Dunst), for whom this Wimbledon is the first, and they change each-other's lives.
Review
First off, I'd like to say that it's extremely nice to see a movie about a sport other than football, baseball, or basketball, it leaves hope in the idea that perhaps Hollywood knows that there are a lot more than just three sports.
Personally, I am not a tennis fan; actually, I have never seen a match played, unless you count the ones in this movie, which I do not. The closest thing I know to the rules of tennis is the rules to ping-pong (but to be quite honest, I'm not sure I know them accurately), and ping-pong, as I'm sure any tennis player would say, is a very different game. This just goes to show that you do not need to know a thing about tennis to enjoy this movie, because I did enjoy it, though I never could get a handle on how the scoring worked. Regardless, I wish it were summer so that I could go outside and hit the ball around, and this movie sparked that desire.
I really liked the computer effects used in this film, they weren't abused, and when they were used, it was very cool. I did not know until the very end that the actors weren't actually playing any tennis at all, but serving and volleying without a ball, and the ball was digitally added later. I was amazed by some of the feats they accomplished with computer effects, and I think they definitely added to the movie in a wonderful way.
Though you see a lot of tennis in this movie, it is about other things as well, and it did an incredible job of developing a dozen or so characters in a very short amount of time. Every character was something different, and all of them entertaining. This movie really made me care about what happened to Peter and Lizzie, and it had me on the edge of my seat during the big tennis matches.
Conclusion
This film as a whole was excellently done. The acting was excellent, the cinematography was great, and I really enjoyed it. Honestly, I have no complaints. It held my attention throughout the entire film (which, believe me, is hard to do), and at the end, I wasn't left with any unanswered questions, which is always nice because usually my mind is either bored to tears, or still wondering about the characters. Due to lack of advertisement (or perhaps to my lack-of-paying-attention), I did not know anything about this movie until last week when I decided to review it, but after having seen it, I really wish I had seen it in theatres, because it was an excellent film that I'm glad I didn't miss out on. In the words of the doorman who was excited about the final match at the end "...and I don't even like tennis."
