Shanghai Surprise

Whenever Sean Penn looks at his Oscar, he can take pride in the fact that he bounced back from this fecal whirlpool committed to film.

A weird low-budget miss. I thought this might have the cheesy retro exotica charm of Trenchcoat, but Kidder was sympathetic. Madonna is too contrived, doing her best Marilyn in every scene. What made Marilyn great was being a sincere ingenue; there was sweet innocence despite overt sexuality & best efforts to play the right cards. There was a sense she needed to be protected. In contrast, Madonna’s like H Clinton playing Monroe. Penn is neither slick, heroic nor trashy enough to be interesting.

I forgot Madonna's supposed to be a nurse in this film

Dopey caper rom-com set in 30s China, with Sean Penn and Madonna running around Shanghai in pursuit of a fabled cache of opium, finding love despite their initial meet-cute (surprise). The murky plot is made murkier by the inability of the viewer to care what happens to anyone involved; the best thing that can be said about it is that it's too forgettable to be one of the worst films ever made.

With George Harrison heavily involved in the music for it, I thought there at least might be some good music to stick around for. The opening was OK but that was it.

I've seen bad chase sequence, but this was on a whole other level of bad.