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Official Synopsis:
There's music in the wind and sky. Can you hear it? And there's hope. Can you feel it? The boy called August Rush can. The music mysteriously draws him, penniless and alone, to New York City in a quest to find - somehow, someway - the parents separated from him years earlier. And along the way he may also find the musical genius hidden within him. Experience the magic of this rhapsodic epic of the heart starring Freddie Highmore (as August), Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard and Robin Williams. "I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales," August says. Open your heart and listen. You'll believe, too.
Our Take:
August Rush appealed to a lot of people by promising a magical experience involving a torn-apart family. All the trailer promised me was a corny and dumb idea where music literally brings people together from across the world. I wasn’t excited by the fairy tale elements I saw in the trailer and I certainly wasn’t excited by them when I watched the movie.
The biggest problem here is that, at its heart, August Rush is in the right place. There are a great many scenes that start to elevate the story into something that resonates but then they bring in this magic element and it ruins everything. I haven’t seen anything as ridiculous as Freddie Highmore standing in the middle of the city “conducting” the flapping of a pigeons’ wings, the screeching of a car's brakes, and people's methodical footsteps; that isn’t music, it’s crazy. It makes no sense and makes it feel like I’m watching a student film with a “message.”
The cast here is fantastic, however. Keri Russell has been making quite a name for herself lately (especially with her performance in Waitress), while Jonathan Rhys Meyers blew me away in the fantastic Match Point and he hasn’t let me down since. And then there’s Freddie Highmore. Highmore is legitimately the only child actor who I can classify as a real actor. He’s not good simply because he’s a kid, he’s good because he understands the craft and does amazing work. The only person who doesn’t do anything for me in the cast is Robin Williams, whose character is too creepy and seemed more like a pedophile than anything else.
Special features for August Rush only include some Additional Scenes which clock in at around 10 minutes.
August Rush shows us, at moments, where it could have actually been a solid little film. Instead it’s taken over by a ridiculous concept and executed in such a poor manner that all of its focus is removed from the uniting of an estranged family and placed on an unrealistic fairy tale element that never pays off for the viewer.
Overall Picture:
Movie: C+
DVD: C
- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer
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