How can such a beautiful, reasonably intelligent woman as Sandra Bullock make so many blunders year after year? It’s as though the woman sticks her potential scripts to a Ouija board and hopes the action-flick spirits will pick her a winner. No, Sandra, dressing up in drag for “”Miss Congeniality 2″” does not sound like a good idea, nor does a time-traveling romantic comedy starring your favorite he-bimbo co-star Keanu Reeves seem especially Oscar-worthy. The tragedy of Bullock is that there are some guilty-pleasure gems in her quirky past: Films like “”The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”” and “”Practical Magic”” highlight her unique ability to make lovesick characters mystical and bold, tear-streaked while still managing to kick ass. But the truly disturbing trend in her 19-year career seems to be that when she isn’t falling in love or onto the floor, she’s just running around.
“”Premonition””‘s self-proclaimed “”stunning”” plotline follows the all-too-average life of WASPy housewife Linda and her declining marriage to the sexy Jim Hanson, played by “”Nip/Tuck”” star Julian McMahon. In addition to steaming up the screen in one of the film’s four shower scenes, McMahon plays the stale character of Jim like a champ, giving hugs, kisses and furrowed brows whenever the situation calls for spousal concern. Linda is your average suburban mother – SUV-driving, jogging, Yankee candle set-dusting – until the day a policeman arrives at her door to bring the news of her husband’s death. A grief-stricken Linda passes out on the living room couch, only to wake up the next morning to find her husband miraculously restored.
Linda spends the day attributing it all to a bad dream, until another nighttime snooze sends her straight back to a Jim-less hell, where time seems to have moved on without her and Jim’s a goner yet again. Linda’s attempts to change her husband’s impending doom are made laughable as Bullock enacts every one of the premonitions and struggles to fill in the murky time gaps.
The mess just continues as a jarring soundtrack of orchestral cacophony crashes in whenever the harried housewife discovers anything even remotely disturbing. The “”Oh my God, it’s coming!”” effect becomes deathly dull when combined with shifty camera work straight out of “”The Blair Witch Project.””
In very M. Night Shyamalan fashion, the film even attempts to save itself by adding a faith-oriented moral to the end, like attaching a big bow to a hideous sweater could really improve the present. Combined with the constant sight of Bullock screaming and running around in her bland Banana Republic gear, you’ve got one humdinger of a silly, theological mess. The only thing “”Premonition”” has going for it is that her shaggy friend, Reeves, is nowhere to be found. Maybe she should have just stuck to drag.
