Description
Megan Valentine was America’s sweetheart. But her latest movie is a bomb, and a crooked accountant has left her broke. So she’s doing what anyone else would do – joining the Army. Now, there’s no star treatment, no stunt doubles… More >>
Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous
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The average viewer already knows coming in that Jessica Simpson cannot act, so it is hardly worth enumerating her many shortcomings. Given that basic premise, it is nevertheless surprising that her acting skills are inadequate even to credibly portray a self-absorbed, unserious, unintelligent Hollywood celebrity with a disturbing collection of relatives and hangers-on managing her career.
Again, though, no serious person would watch this movie with the expectation that Simpson’s acting skills might carry it. One might, however, expect that actors with the credentials – and comic chops – of Viveca A. Fox, Steve Guttenberg and Saturday Night Live alum Cheri Oteri might be able to carry Simpson. Sadly, they cannot, and rather than elevating the material, they are diminished by it, and that is just too bad for them – and us.
It is puzzling, though, that, having taken the trouble to enlist the aid of these professionals in front of the camera, the producers did not invest more in a quality script and higher production values. The editing is uneven, the pacing rarely matches the intended mood, and the factual and continuity errors are too numerous to recount (and too blatant to overlook.) The film lurches from clumsily executed cliche to awkwardly forced punchline, and never develops a single character beyond two dimensions.
“There’s no crying in the Army!” shouts First Sergeant Morely (Fox,) greeting a new recruit. Really? Because I thought that was baseball.
“Say it, don’t spray it!” responds Valentine (Simpson) to a drill sergeant. If this had been written and produced by your fifth-grader, you might fake laughter, but only to encourage your kids to keep trying. Unfortunately, this movie was made by adults, and the last thing we should do is encourage them to make another movie.
There is no story line worth noting, and even the lame attempt to create a romantic connection between Simpson and Drill Sergeant Evans (Ryan Sypek,) is, at best, baffling. The two characters share hardly any scenes, and none in which Simpson’s Megan Valentine displays any redeeming, much less attractive qualities. As for Sypek’s character, he is hardly more than a backdrop.
It’s really too bad that a couple of good actors attached their names to this disaster. Just the other day, I re-watched “Police Academy” (also starring Guttenberg) on television. At the time that movie came out, I thought it was just a series of cheap laughs held together only by the strong comic performances of the cast. By comparison to “Private Valentine,” however, it was King Lear.
Rating: 1 / 5
Was there even a director in this movie? It hurt me to watch Jessica’s performance because I love her! Not a great storyline either. Buy this only if you’re a Jess fan.
Rating: 1 / 5
Private Benjamin (3) plus Troop Beverly Hills (2) Minus Stripes (4) leaves this with a one. Or you could say I gave it a one because it was in color. Dead, no action, seen it all before kind of movie.
Rating: 1 / 5
I have not even heard this was in the making or being released to DVD. I decided to take a chance because I was mildly entertained by Blonde Ambition. Turns out to be an entertaining movie. I agree with the other review that she has good comedic timing.
I wasn’t too entertained by Vivica A. Fox’s role, I think they could have chosen supporting actress that fit the role better. And the woman from SNL they used, I wasn’t thrilled with her age, she just didn’t fit. The movie isn’t perfect, but worth watching.
Rating: 4 / 5
Jessica Simpson stars in a girl power film that went on to become a box office success in Russia and is planned for DVD release in the US on February 3rd. How does the Pop/Country singer do in her latest film?
“Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous” is about a film star named Missy Valentine (Simpson).
Missy lives a life where she’s tended to by her staff and is pretty much taken care of by her professional staff. May it be agent Sidney (Guttenberg) or her manager Nigel (Michael Hitchcock) who scouted her back when she was 13 and then there is a family member who helps manage her finances.
Life is not always fun for Missy. She’s always featured on the gossip magazines and followed by paparazzi and life is a bit lonely for Missy. She doesn’t have any close ties with her sister ever since she became an actress. If anything, she just has the people who work close to her , her dog and her boyfriend.
But Missy is your stereotype ditzy blonde and during the night of her film premiere, things go haywire and she loses everything. Her relative/manager steals all her money, she finds out her staff doesn’t really like her, her boyfriend is having an affair and she crashes her SUV. Things are not going well for Missy and thus, she needs to find a new direction in her life.
So, she ends up joining the military. Not knowing what she’s getting into…
But because Missy is not to happy with her life at bootcamp, she does what she can to get thrown out. She’s wakes up late, she doesn’t show up in time for morning call, she’s defiant but each time she fails in training, she lets down the whole unit and automatically gets them all punished by forcing the whole unit to run many miles or having to do all this work because all Missy is thinking about is herself. And it’s starting to affect her unit’s morale.
Sgt. Morley (Vivica A. Fox) tries to have her off the boot camp because she’s become such a distraction. But the Captain feels that it could hurt the Army’s image if an actress is kicked out of bootcamp, so he refuses to kick Missy out. Thus Missy will have to finish off bootcamp and everyone must put up with her.
But perhaps Missy may learn a lesson in the Army.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“Private Valentine: Blonde and Dangerous” is featured in 2:40:1 anamorphic widescreen. The video quality is fine at the most part but some areas tend to showcase quite a bit of grain.
As for audio, audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and as much as the music became clear, I don’t recall any use of sound utilized specially on all channels. If anything, this film is dialogue-driven. But you can hear the audio clearly through your front channels.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The DVD features two major features.
The special features two deleted scenes and the other is “The Making of Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous”, a nine minute featurette.
If anything, the making of featurette is quite interesting to watch. You get to learn about the challenges that the ladies faced by filming in the South, especially the insect bites courtesy of mosquitoes and chiggers. So, each talent is interviewed in regards to working in high humidity and being in the swamp where insects, alligators and moccasins and other things could be. But for a lot of these ladies, the experience to play such a role and get dirty, was an exciting experience for them. Interesting is that interviews were made with all major talent and the main actress, Jessica Simpson is not featured in the featurette.
“Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous” is at most part a girl-power, girl bonding film. It’s entertaining but at the same time, there are just so many segments that I was quite disappointed in.
For one, for a military film, to see Jessica Simpson’s long hair looking like it’s getting in the way was surprising. Her hair was not in a bun and not even cut short for the role. But I’ll let that sly, there are just a few things that made no sense in the film.
If the men and women in her training unit had to run three miles multiple times a day because of a person’s inability to follow the rules, I can not see how this unit would tolerate for that long. Even if she was a popular actress, I can not see a unit constantly being punished so many times because of her and to be so lax with an “aww shucks” attitude. I’m surprised the guys never had anything to say. I was actually waiting for a character (one of her friends) to stand up to her and really be furious and slap her (granted one character threatens her). If anything, these women kept to themselves and really had no bite towards how Missy was handling things.
I’m sure one can find comparisons to the 1980 Goldie Hawn film “Private Benjamin” which also features a ditsy blonde trying to find a new direction in her life by enlisting in the US Army but as that film had substance, entertaining as “Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous” was in certain parts, it lacked substance.
I guess with some aspects of the film, I was entertained and if you are in the mood for a popcorn flick on DVD that will make you laugh, something not too serious and a bit campy, then definitely give “Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous” a try.
Rating: 2 / 5