Down to You | | Cast : | Freddie Prinze Jr., Julia Stiles | | Director : | Kris Isacsson | | Studio : | Miramax | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 21, 2000 | | DVD Released Date : | July 11, 2000 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | March 18, 2005 | | Summary | Winkler was the good part | Content
 | If you must watch this film, watch it for Winkler, who gives an interesting preview of his future role in "Arrested Development". Watching this movie for "Prinz" and "Stiles" is counterproductive. Not only have the actors "failed to make the best" of the script, the script was written from the viewpoint of the super-rich Hollywood elite who live lives with zero financial consequences. Thus, we watch as young adults walk out on culinary school, muse about becoming "singer-songwriters", and "stop paying attention" to their college plans. Much like the "Friends" genre that this movie shamelessly imitates, this is a "time porn" piece, where the characters have little else to do besides "mature romantically" and "find themselves". A movie for history's circular file. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 02, 2004 | | Summary | Prinze & Stiles deserve better than too cute romantic comedy | Content
| "Down to You" is a romantic comedy that insists on substituting style for substance at key moments in the proceedings. It wants to take a cute approach to a serious relationship, as Al (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) and Imogen (Julia Stiles) do a retroactive post mortem on their relationship. The problem, as they both confide to the audience, is that they were too young when they met each other, implying that if only the timing was right the relationship would be right. The tagline for this film was "A new comedy about giving first love a second chance," which goes beyond the boundaries of either description or foreshadowing enough to warrant losing a star on the rating on that basis alone.
Al and Imogen meet at a bar and click immediately, which seems to be more of a surprise to him than to her. She has sworn off dating so can enjoy her college experience, but she is not about to let a rule make her pass on Al who she considers to be cute. He has some strange dorm friends (Selma Blair, Shawn Hatosy, Zak Orth and Rosario Dawson) who want him to swear off on Imogen, but he manages to ignore them most of the time. Meanwhile, the damage caused by his famous chef father (Henry Winkler in a nice turn, with Lucy Arnaz as his wife) does not seem to be too bad since he has the family cooking gene, but we have to wait a long time in this movie for him to grow up enough to be almost good enough for her.
Director-writer Kris Isacsson has two personable performers but never really does right by them. She is the more serious of the pair (it will be a long time before Stiles is ever the flighty one in a romantic comedy; it takes a Jason Bourne to get her to back down in a film), and he never really succeeds in bridging the gap to the point where we believe these two have a real chance. Al is just not in her league. The problem is that ultimately this is not a cute film about a serious relationship but a cute film about a cute relationship, and that can be fraught with danger, especially when songs get used to cover up the problems. When the character of Monk in this film becomes the voice of reason, you know the train has left the tracks.
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| Rating | | | Date | February 19, 2004 | | Summary | Downright Abyssmal | Content
| I'm making an exception to my usual practice of not reviewing anything on amazon, due to the utter vileness of this movie. I saw it when it came out in theaters and hated it, and then a friend purchased the DVD and convinced me to give it a second chance... all in all, this movie ended up taking about four hours of my life that I will never get back.
The performances are thin and uneven, the plot is inconsistent, and the dialogue sounds like it was pulled from fortune cookies made by the cast of Friends. To be fair, this movie does face several major obstacles. It has the misfortune to depend on the "acting" of glorified Ken doll Freddie Prinze, Jr. and the vastly overrated Julia Stiles, and in addition to trying to rise above these challenges, it also attempts to survive the intrusion of Ashton Kutcher. It fails on all counts.
I do not hate the whole romantic comedy genre; nor do I hate the "teen" movie sub-genre, under which some would place "Down to You." (In fact, "Can't Hardly Wait" is one of my favorite movies.) I simply hate BAD movies, and this movie is a true abomination. If you enjoy the experience of wanting to drill into your own skull, then by all means, buy this DVD. If, however, you value your sanity, then please do not make the same mistake I did; stay far, FAR away from this movie. |
| Rating | | | Date | September 29, 2003 | | Summary | Not very good | Content
| Funny that most movies with Freddie Prinze, Jr. aren't very good. In this one, he plays college student Al, who falls in love with fellow student Imogen (yup, that really IS a name) alias Julia Stiles. Al definitely thinks that Imogen is the love of his life, but soon nothing is as happy as it used to be, especially when Imogen cheats on Al with a reincarnation of Jim Morrison (Ashton Kutcher). But...surprise, surprise...the movie still has a happy ending.
"Down To You" is not a desastrous movie, but it's really nothing that you'd like to see more than once. The story is old and shapeless, the jokes are not funny and the dialogues are flat and not very smart. The cast, however, doesn't make the movie any better. Julia Stiles was in better roles already, Freddie Prinze, Jr. is acting like a piece of wood and Ashton Kutcher's part is simply bad. Not to mention the supporting actors like Selma Blair and Zak Orth.
Don't waste your time or money on that one. It's no good movie. |
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