When Max’s uncle dies, he must travel to France to deal with his estate. While there, he meets a beautiful French woman that helps him realize his apparently perfect life is void of everything that’s actually important.

I think the thing that A GOOD YEAR will forever be known for is the fact that very few people even know it exists. I find it crazy that in this day and age, a movie starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott could fly this far under the radar. Especially since the last time these two collaborated, their film went on to win 5 Oscars. With that said, I can’t say that the general public will miss much by not seeing A GOOD YEAR.

Everyone knows exactly what kind of film this is going to be from the opening scene. It’s no surprise that the cold hearted, greedy Max will learn the value of family and friendship through a series of humorous mishaps and with the love of a shapely French woman. So the issue, of course, is whether or not we care about the characters involved. This reviewer did not care and found the journey of self-discovery to be painstakingly long and downright boring.

I’m a huge fan of Ridley Scott and he normally does a great job of telling stories in creative and interesting ways. However, with this turn, I got the feeling he was more interested in taking a vacation in France than putting effort into his film. The same can be said for the normally inspired Russell Crowe. It just seemed like he was annoyed someone was filming his holiday in Europe.

I’m also sick of Hollywood’s fascination with wine. Maybe I don’t “get” it, but wine is just a tasty beverage to me. I don’t see the link between wine and life’s great mysteries. Also, the whole American-discovering-him/herself-in-Europe has been done before, and done better. See A WALK IN THE CLOUDS and UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN for reference. So it was bad enough that the movie wasn’t very good, but I couldn’t help but think the whole time that I’d seen it before.

Video: Widescreen (2.35:1): There was a pleasant softness to the colors in the film that drew attention to the beautiful settings in France.

Audio: English 5.1, French and Spanish 2.0 with Spanish, French and English subtitles: Surround channels weren’t used very often, but they weren’t needed. Overall, the audio was fine.

Postcards From Provence (39:17): This is a feature-length “track” that can be selected to play along with the film. It’s part commentary, part featurette. Personally, I thought this innovative way to give a behind the scenes look at a film was better than the film itself. It was pretty in-depth with interesting factoids sprinkled throughout.

Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott Promo (2:34): Ridley and Russell sit down have a conversation over a handful of movie clips. It’s decent, and it seems like these two have a lot of fun together.

There are also some Previews, TV spots and Music Videos.

I appreciate the idea of making a small, personal story about finding love and happiness, but there are plenty of better examples out there than A GOOD YEAR. I’d leave this one alone and hope that the next collaboration between Scott and Crowe works better than this.