Leap Year 2010

     Anna Brady plans to travel to Dublin Ireland to propose to her boyfriend Jeremy on February 29.  This is leap day and according to Irish tradition, a man who receives a marriage proposal on a leap day must accept it.

     This upbeat but shallow romantic comedy follows closely to traditional Hollywood formulas.  While there isn't much in the way of age inappropriate content for older tweens and teens they may find the banter between stars Amy Adams and Matthew Goode only somewhat amusing?  The movie does tap into tired stereotypes about men, women and romance.  Adams' character is supposed to be seen as self-sufficient?  But, she ultimately seems to be just another regular Hollywood female character.  She is just waiting for "the right one" to make everything right in her life.  On the up side, language, sex and violence are quite tame.  There is one upsetting scene involving a man killing a chicken!!    2 1/2* (This movie is so-so)

100 min, Comedy directed by Anand Tucker and written by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont with Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow, Noel O’Donovan, Tony Rohr, Pat Laffan, Alan Devlin, Ian McElhinney, Dominique McElligott, Mark O’Regan, Maggie McCarthy, Peter O’Meara, Macdara O’ Fatharta, Kaitlin Olson.

Note:  Imdb 6.5* out of 10* with 96,476 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 23% with 141 critic reviews 47% with 100,000+ audience scores, Metacritic 33 out of 100 with 30 critic reviews 6.1 out of 10 with 78 user scores, Roger Ebert 3*, Common Sense Media S. Jhoanna Robledo 2* out of 5*, age 11+, 1* role models, 2* positive messages, violence, sex, language, consumerism, drinking, drugs & smoking.

Special Note:  This is the first movie for Amy Adams set in Ireland.  The castle the two leading characters climb up to is the Rock of Dunamase in County Laois  although it has been added to with CGI.  The bridge on which Anna and Declan have the conversation about his ex-fiancée is in St. Stephen's Green, a well-known park in central Dublin.  Matthew Goode slammed the film after its release saying he only took the role to be close to London. "That was the main reason I took it - so that I could come home at the weekends".

Mistakes:  When Anna and Jeremy are at the restaurant, Jeremy says they "might have to go in through the spine." No surgery of any kind ever goes "through the spine," particularly any cardiac surgery.  In human anatomy, the common term "spine" actually is the vertebral column.  The statement made by Jeremy literally would mean you would split the patient's vertebrae to get to the heart.  One of the old men in the pub says that the last train left Dingle in 1987.  The last train from Dingle left in 1953 on the narrow gauge line to Tralee.  At breakfast at the B&B, Anna is told that trains are not running because it's Sunday.  When everything in the room is being destroyed it shows the bottle on the table by the window being smashed on the floor.  In the next scene, the bottle is back on the table?