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View from the Top (2003) More at IMDb Pro »

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130 comments in total

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45 out of 59 people found the following comment useful :-
I thought it was a very cute and charming movie, 20 September 2003
Author: Keri-7

I really cant believe some of the bad reviews of this movie that I have just been reading on here! The movie is EXACTLY what it promises to be; cute, charming, and yes, a little bit fluffy!! However, it does not take itself too seriously and that makes its flaws forgiveable. I thought it was very entertaining and refreshing, come on people, LIGHTEN UP!!

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36 out of 53 people found the following comment useful :-
Lightweight Escapism (not that that's a bad thing), 1 April 2003

Author: JacquiQ from Southern California, Drat it!

If you want silly, fun stuff, this is the movie to see. Mike Myers was grand... nice to see him in a small movie. Gwyneth Paltrow predictably good indeed and Candice Bergen perfectly cast as the "big-haired mentor".

It was relaxing to enjoy a lightweight comedy/romance with NO BIG MESSAGE, just smiles and a large number of giggles. I gave it 8 of 10.

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26 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
Hard to criticize..., 7 September 2003
Author: MovieAddict2008 from UK

Here's where being a film critic is tricky. This movie isn't really bad, it's actually worth seeing in some senses. It's less than 90 minutes long, which is a safe bet for a comedy. But it fails to deliver any laughs, it stumbles in its course and has some major flaws. As a film critic, my assignment is to tell the readers my humble opinion of whether a film is worth paying to see. In that regard, no, "View from the Top" is not recommended by me. I didn't even really enjoy it that much. It delivers nothing fresh. But I never checked my watch, I never felt like doing something else with my time. It is a harmless film, a good-natured, sappy one-laugh movie that isn't as clever as it thinks it is but still manages to be sublimely interesting in an odd fashion. It kept me interested, although there may be a difference between interested and entertained.

"View from the Top" has been in what filmmakers call "production hell" for quite some time. It finally was released only to bomb at the box office. I don't blame the public for ignoring it. It's sad to think that the funniest thing about "View from the Top" is that Mike Myers' co-star role as a weirdo airline employee is the highlight of the movie. Myers' cameo may be self-indulgent, but not nearly as much so as Adam Sandler's in "The Hot Chick." In fact, without Mike Myers, I would have given this movie an even lesser rating.

The movie is about airline stewardesses and their way to the top. This sounds like a dull subject because it is. This can hardly be stretched out into a long movie without becoming repetitive. But, in a sense, it isn't cliched - there are no evil characters bent on the heroine's destruction, there aren't any sexually suggestive pilots hitting on the heroine. It's just a story about a woman trying to make it to the top. It will probably inspire and enthrall the younger crowds but leave older audiences unsure.

The film stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Donna Jensen, a small-town girl who dreams of leaving her country home and moving out into the real world. After reading an inspirational book about a flight stewardess who made her way to the top, Donna leaves home and joins a low-key airline service. Rob Lowe makes a cameo as the pilot but then disappears for the rest of the film. With the ads for the movie, you'd think he's a main character.

Donna meets up with Shelly (Kelly Preston) and another young stewardess played by Christina Applegate. They decide to join Royalty Airlines, but Donna's test results are switched and she ends up being turned down for a job at the airline by Frank Whitney (Mike Myers), who has a funny eye that turns inwards and in order to read he must go through crazy guestures.

This movie has sweet performances and sweet intentions, and comes off the way it wants to - sweet - but I can't bring myself to fully recommend you pay to see it. "View from the Top" isn't a particularly fine movie. It's watchable fluff, and the techniques the film use are not as cliched as something like "Legally Blonde." But in the end, I realized I had barely laughed at anything. Perhaps cliches aren't always the things to avoid.

2.5/5 stars -

John Ulmer

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Starts Funny But Gets Boring At The Romance Track, 7 March 2008
Author: Flekkzy from Fraggle Rock

It starts on a promising note as one might have expected a 'Legally Blonde' type comedy even though Gwyneth Paltrow does not exactly pull off the dumb blonde act as well as Reese Witherspoon. There's a lot of hilarious comedy as the characters of the hotties: Kelly Preston, Christina Applegate and Paltrow meet and befriend one another. However, things slow down and get boring once the film shifts to the Ruffalo-Paltrow romance track. Among the cast only Christina Applegate stands out as the bitchy jealous friend-turned rival (even though she's played similar roles in 'Married with Children' and 'Friends') while Paltrow does an alright job. Ruffalo plays the typical love-interest and he has done better in 'Just Like Heaven'. Somewhere in the latter half of the film there's a hilarious cat-fight between Applegate and Paltrow which was fun to watch and in the end we get a glimpse of some bloopers (many of which are uninteresting). 'View From The Top' is forgettable. Having seen the trailer, I expected something hilarious but alas!

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9 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
uneven though occasionally fun, 26 June 2004
Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

Bruno Barreto's `View From the Top' boasts a cute premise that doesn't quite live up to its potential. The film starts out in a satirical vein, promising to deliver a nifty spoof of life in the friendly skies. Instead, it settles into a typical romantic comedy formula, not bad as these things go, but nothing to write home about either. So while `View from the Top' never soars very high, neither does it end up crashing and burning. In this day and age, one must be grateful for a safe landing, even if the ride is a bumpy one.

Gwyneth Paltrow delivers a winning performance as Donna, a small town girl who becomes a stewardess as a way of escaping her dysfunctional family and white trash upbringing. The first part of the film is fun, as Donna earns her wings flying for a cut-rate airline whose attendants dress and act more like prostitutes than stewardesses. With their form-fitting, cleavage-exposing blouses, purple hot pants and big hair, these pleasantly perky hostesses look like they're ready to serve their passengers more than just the customary coffee, tea or milk. So far, so good - but once the girls move onto a more `legitimate' airline, much of the satiric bite drains out of the film and we move onto the more familiar terrain of catty rivalries, long distance romance, and unrequited love.

In addition to Paltrow, the movie features Christina Applegate, Rob Lowe, Candice Bergen and Mark Ruffalo in various roles. Mike Myers is surprisingly annoying in the part of a cross-eyed stewardess trainer. The screenplay by Eric Wald has a maddening tendency to drop characters along the way, giving the film a slapdash, unformed and oddly amateurish quality. As partial compensation, the film boasts superb production and costume design and a generally ebullient spirit.

`View From the Top' doesn't end up flying us anywhere special and it's definitely coach all the way, but it does serve up a few laughs in mid flight.

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9 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
could have been one of the funniest, interesting movies of the year, 1 December 2003
Author: mark lasts from Los Angeles, California

i liked the premise - small-town girl makes it big as an airline stewardess. the costuming and set design suggested this could be a hip, trend-setting movie. i love seeing women and men who seem different and invite curiosity, i like watching Gwyneth Paltrow acting out the sincerity in her character. but it sure seemed this script wasn't rewritten enough times - even redirected. most of the other characters were introduced as a little quirky or sexy, but after that they became uninteresting, the tension or romance between them didn't seem real. why introduce characters that never recur or mean anything in the end? why go to Paris or New York, and see it from the inside of a room? it's as if the budget was being cut as each page of the script was discovered to be unworkable material! by the end of the film, i felt sorry for most of stars who appeared in this. i think it could have been one of the funniest, interesting movies of the year - i would love to remake it as a real insight into the world of the airline stewardess.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Uneven comedy-drama has sweet and funny moments amongst the silliness..., 13 March 2006

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Unremarkable but pleasant-enough fluff has Gwyneth Paltrow pulling a Bridget Fonda, playing hick cashier in Nevada who gets inspiration from a celebrity airline hostess and takes to the skies. Occasionally overbearing comedy-romance about flight attendants has Paltrow in unusually silly spirits; her role isn't realistic, of course, but it's a lot of fun watching her go through the ropes, gaining self-confidence and making friends. The romance with Mark Ruffalo is never in the way and provides a nice capper at the end. Film begins skittishly, but it too gains confidence and composure, despite too many hams in the supporting cast and an overabundance of what appear to be costume designs from the early 1970s (yet the film takes place in the present day). Not a big success, but perhaps an entertainingly minor one. **1/2 from ****

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7 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
How could this movie be so bad?, 4 June 2005

Author: dave-imdb-6 from Canada

For the number of big stars in this movie, I'm surprised more care wasn't taken to ensure it wasn't so horrible.

The movie starts out promising, with kind of a campy nostaligic feel, but soon progresses into crapland. The script is awful, and it seems like the actors know it. Hearing Gwyneth Paltrow say "what about your hickeys?" in any context is just wrong. And Christina Applegate's acting style fit in on Married with Children, but that's because she was SUPPOSED to act poorly. On a feature film, that approach doesn't work. Mike Myers just should not be in this movie. His character is poorly thought out, and he just pulls out the same old shtick to compensate for a stupid character.

This movie gave me that same sinking feeling I got when watching "Cellular". I knew it was just going to get worse and worse, that's what bad movies do.

I gave this movie 3 stars. I don't know why I gave it that many. Maybe because Gwyneth looks good.

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7 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Abysmal, 22 March 2005

Author: DUSTYGRIMP from Providence, Rhode Island

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This may have been the single worst large studio production I have ever seen. Beginning with the acting, Gwynneth Paltrow sleepwalks through this one like no actor I have ever seen. The one thing she displayed in this putrid mess was spectacular posture. Her dialog lacked life, which was largely due to it's laughable nature. Her attempts at physical comedy were so amateurish that I began to wonder if the whole thing was a spoof. Christina Appelgate couldn't have been worse if she were deceased. Candice Bergen tried desperately to reprise her Miss Congeniality role even though her character was written without any personal depth. Even the likable Mark Ruffalo came off poorly when confronted with the terrible direction and revolting writing that backed this travesty. When Mike Myers provides the best performance in your movie, you know you are in trouble.

I watched the movie alone and I asked myself, aloud, if this were the unfunniest comedy I had ever seen or the least moving drama. That is, the movie was so bad I was talking to myself. The story of a small town resident trying to get away has been done so frequently that undertaking it again requires something special. A View From the Top lacked that something. The nadir occurs when Appelgate and Paltrow fight in the galley of an otherwise empty plane, spilling peanuts and drink carts along the way. Maybe that sounds amusing, but when you see the actresses looking for things to knock over you know you are in the midst of a bad dream. Actually, check that. The nadir occurs when several of the students, including our heroine, first go to Sally Westin's (Bergen) house for dinner and we are subjected to a stream of jokes surrounding the homosexuality of Randy Jones (Josh Molina) that are at best unfunny and at worst offensively homophobic.

Before I get myself worked up any more over this, let me just say stay away from this film.

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9 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
maddeningly empty, 23 September 2004

Author: hellbetty from Victoria BC Canada

It's not too often that a movie comes along that is so bad it makes me angry... but this is one.

I kept waiting for a laugh that never came, and was further insulted by the non-committal soundtrack. Was it supposed to insinuate girl-power? Maybe if you like country/rock uplifting go-girl artists... maybe its just me.

Mike Myers absolutely stole the few scenes he did appear in, but wasn't enough to make this movie bearable. And although it was painted a la Down With Love, it did nothing to uphold the style statement it seemed to be trying to make.

ooooh pink and blue! It stunk.

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