Dreadfully Boring

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A sassy, sharp-tongued, independent business woman being tamed by a bad-boyish womanizer is nothing new to the world of romantic comedies. Deliver Us From Eva (2003) not only clearly falls in this category of movies but is also a new version of Shakespeare's play The Taming of a Shrew. As a loose adaption of this play, one is introduced to the life of the popular and beautiful Dandridge sisters who have a really close relationship since their parents died. The main character Eva, played by Gabrielle Union, constantly gets into her sisters' relationships through criticizing her in-laws and indirectly manipulating their relationships. Because of that, they are hiring the local womanizer, Ray, to seduce her "sister in law from hell" to stop her from interfering their lives. As Ray, portrayed by rapper LL Cool J, first refuses to get into this business, changes his mind after seeing Eva doing her job as an inspector for the Los Angeles Health Department. Because he sees her wittily criticizing the standards of a restaurant, he takes the challenge to tame the bossiness of Eva. Accepting the $5000 he gets offered, he starts wooing Eva and starts to develop real feelings for her. Throughout the story their relationship intensifies and Eva gets literally "tamed". As the men discover that Eva declines a job offer in another town because of Ray, the story starts getting really out of hand and illogical. Instead of telling the truth, they are coming up with a whole other idea that just seems unrealistic. But the film not only has negative aspects, as it starts off with a scene from the end and an introducing narration of Ray himself. This flash-forward sequence gives an interesting kind of twist as you want to know what happened to lead our characters to this situation. Sadly, the interesting start of the film gets lost and the ending of the film is pretty obvious – happy ending, what a surprise. One of the more interesting things is the construction of the two main characters. On the one hand, Union convincingly plays the part of the first cold and emotionally distant woman that then lets down her emotional guard. On the other hand, LL Cool J handles his easy going flirty role as the womanizer pretty well. But still their chemistry is mostly destroyed through the flat secondary characters. As we have the husbands who only want to realize their dreams without listening to their wives' wishes, the constantly thirsty hairdresser with her leather wearing best friend and an asshole ex-boyfriend. In addition, during opening credits we experience a little musical number of "You're All I Need to Get By" which itself is entertaining but is rather confusing for the introduction to the story – seriously, what is the intention of this musical number at the beginning? As it is kind of charming that the cast itself sings it, one could expect some kind of Kiss Me Kate atmosphere, another Taming of a Shrew adaption. The rest of the film soundtrack consists mostly of sensual R 'n' B tracks and Hip Hop music to set the urban mood. Often used in the film are short sequences of dramatic music to stress certain situation, e.g.: As we are first introduced to Eva, dramatic orchestra music is played that would make Darth Vader himself jealous. All in all, the film is not able to transfer convincingly authentic feelings, real romance or an interesting plot line. Obviously, the main problem is the bad written screenplay, as it seems to be that the writers had no real thoughtful ideas for the ending. It only makes one wish to get delivered from this film.

Punning titles are rarely a promising sign in the world of movies. Too often it seems that the film has been fashioned around the title, and too often the title is the best thing about the film. Deliver Us From Eva isn't a badly-made movie, but it is a predictable and lazily-written one that eventually outstays its welcome despite some spirited performances from an attractive black cast.Gabrielle Union plays the eponymous Eva, an uptight twenty-something health inspector who has raised her three younger sisters single-handedly since the death of their parents when she was 18. Much to the chagrin of their male partners, Eva is still running her sister's lives, even though they are all now adults. To put an end to this situation, they hire master player and meat delivery man – make of that what you will – Ray (a miscast LL Cool J) to woo her into moving to another city where he can then dump her before returning home. Immediately it becomes evident to even the most casual viewer that this is a perfect plan. A plan without a flaw of any description. How can it possibly go wrong? Hmmm, we think, looks like the writers might have written themselves into a corner with this one… As you might have already gathered, Deliver Us From Eva's biggest problem is that it announces its divorce from reality within seconds of the opening credits. Even movies like this, which inhabit a self-contained urban never-never land in which the real world never intrudes, need to possess some degree of believability, but this one doesn't seem to care whether it makes sense on any level. Eva starts out as an overbearing monster with a hair-trigger temper, all tightly-buttoned business suits and severe hairstyle, but is swiftly transformed butterfly-like into a hip and sassy 'sister' by the attentions of a nondescript man who stands out from the crowd thanks only to his size. Funny how Hollywood comedy screenwriters so often seem to believe that all a stuffy woman needs to lose her repression is a good seeing to in the bedroom.Eva's sisters, each of them bright and beautiful, seem curiously content to allow their older sibling to dominate their lives, and begin every other sentence with the words 'Eva says…' like mindless dolls with a key and a piece of string in their back. Quite frankly, rather than wanting to get closer to these Stepford candidates you'd think the hapless trio of men would be seeking out ways of putting a little distance between them and their partners. Given that Ray's seduction methods possess the sophistication of an average nineteen year-old's, the ferocious Eva's defences crumble surprisingly quickly, and it isn't long before she's rolling around in his lap like a playful kitten. While this may have just about got by had someone with a little more charisma than LL Cool J taken on the role of Ray, the former rapper's performance is so understated that he manages to conjure no sexual chemistry whatsoever with the delectable Miss Union (and I write that with the fearlessness of someone who knows that a large body of water separates me and the rapper-dude). Mr. J is a curious choice for the role: it calls for a smooth seducer, an effortless ladies man with an air of confidence that LL (what the hell do you call him, anyway?) lacks. He was presumably selected to lure in the young black audience, but he's too big and clumsy for the part of Ray, and never looks comfortable. His character is all wrong for the feisty Eva, anyway, and that's another of the movie's weaknesses. The characters are either paper-thin or hopelessly stereotypical (eg: an outrageously camp homosexual hairdresser – I wonder how long it took them to dream up that one). While the minor characters are picked off-the-shelf from some kind of screenwriter's equivalent of Wal-Mart, the central characters' are never filled out, and their actions are designed solely to drive the action along with no consideration given to consistency or logic. Once the basic premise is established, the movie embarks on a slow journey toward farce, without any stops for development or insight, before taking an ill-advised left turn toward a conclusion as corny as it is contrived. And it arrives in such a rush that you can be forgiven for believing that director Gary Hardwick wants to get the journey over with as much as the viewer does.The only real positive to be taken from the film is Gabrielle Union on whose shoulders, thanks to Cool J's reserved performance, most of its weight falls. She shoulders the burden admirably, proving herself to be an adept and appealing light comedienne, and she deserves to be seen in more – and better – leading roles.To try to defend movies like this by declaring that they aren't supposed to be taken seriously is something of a cop-out. How much leeway do you give a flick simply because it's a light comedy with no artistic aspirations? Does this excuse its makers from striving to create believable scenarios and characters, and from making at least some attempt to add something new? I don't think so, somehow: comedy writers owe the audience as much as any other kind of writer.I can't remember laughing once during this film – and I'm a man: easily entertained, you know?

This movie was unquestionably outstanding. How could anyone not enjoy this? Because they're simply just haters. The movie was a romantic comedy and easy for anyone to enjoy. Gabrielle was off the chain. She was a little uptight, but that was settled when she got her boyfriend. If the men would've been smart enough to embrace her instead of pushing away each time, she would've been that much easier to live with, although she was out of line most of the time. This was a great movie, preferably for the Black community. This was quite realistic to me. It's very cool when you get to see a strong black woman portrayed on television, as opposed to what we saw in Monster's Ball, a dependent woman who was a straight up freak. If you were looking for a movie for sex, get over it. God doesn't like us watching trash like that anyway. All in all, I watched this movie over and over again and never got tired of it. Go see it you haven't. You'll enjoy it.

At first I was cautious about seeing a "black" romantic comedy, that's speaking as a black man.However as the movie progressed I found the movie funny, witty which delivered good entertainment.The story/plot is nothing new and generally the script would equally work with "white" or any other "race/ethnic minority".For once "LL Cool J" acting wasn't (seemingly) wooden and was aptly suited to the part of being a "mack" who was "out-macked" by a foxy and intelligent lady.The ending of the movie in my opinion was disappointing as it was "surgary" but nevertheless I would wholeheartedly recommend the movie to anyone who has an open mind.