It’s awfully boring for a spy movie. Allied would be a better film if it could decide whether to be a wartime espionage film, or to just embrace the wartime romance. Instead it tries to be both, and in trying, fails to be much of either.
Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play undercover spies who meet for the first time pretending to be spouses. Some dead Nazis and some illicit sandstorm sex later, they 
decide that since they’re so good at pretending, they may as well get married in real life too. They’re warned that “field romances” rarely prosper, but critics be damned, they marry anyway, with London blitzing away in the background.
Marion Cotillard is full of sparkle, but Brad Pitt just flubs this six ways to occupied France. He has his moments, I suppose, but watching him struggle, try too hard, and come in rubbery is just embarrassing. Why has director Robert Zemeckis allowed such mediocrity? Possibly because he knew the material didn’t warrant much more. Brady Pitt is hardly the only problem, only the most surprising. The script is limp, indecisive. Nothing juicy happens until an hour in, the action comes in very, very small bursts with lots of passing the time in between. And at least one of the lead actors, perhaps even both, are outshined by Cotillard’s wardrobe, which may be a bit sumptuous for 1940s London, but who’s counting. Costumer Joanna Johnston nabbed an Oscar nom for her work but probably stands very little chance of actually winning. And frankly, I’m perfectly okay with this Oscar baity movie coming away with no Academy Awards whatsoever.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
Yeah, the premise just screams “meh” to me. I guess they needed the scandal to generate interest.
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And even that failed.
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Uh oh, hubby really looking forward to seeing this (in his mind it’s a war movie), think I’ll just keep shtum and get a bottle of wine for it.
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Diabolical! 😀
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I’m confident you can make your way through it. It’s not torture, just forgettable.
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Yeah, I found it underwhelming. Brad should’a left WWII alone after Inglorious Basterds
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Good point!
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Man, the world hates rhis movie.
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I wasn’t all that sold on this one and the trailer didn’t do too much for me, either. Well, other than confirm I should leave this one alone.
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After seeing the trailer I was already not terribly enthused about this, and after reading what you thought of it Jay, I’m definitely taking a pass.
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Fair review. To be honest, it never even entered my mind seeing it even though I did read reviews praising it. The fact that there are two huge stars involved in this does not persuade lots of people anymore – and there are so many films nowadays trying to go for the all-around genre and failing. You are right, the movie could fail just on that basis, trying to go for both romance and espionage.
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I pretty much obligate myself to see as many Oscar nominated films as I can before my pool, or else I might have given this a miss entirely (hard for me to do since I love Cotillard).
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Agree with most sentences in this review. Some truly ridiculous, poor moments of filmmaking. Check out my review for more the same.
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I am disappointed. I am fascinated by WWII movies. I was hoping this would be better…
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This film wasn’t anything special. It was just okay. Good enough for one watch, then I’ll probably never watch it again.
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The rumors swirled about a romance between these stars… they are very pretty people… but movies should be more and better than this. Thanks Jay for another excellent review.
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