Critic Reviews

Much of the charm of Ticket to Paradise comes from knowing exactly how this story will end — what would a good romantic comedy be without a guaranteed happy ending? — without being totally certain of the journey to get there, because of the originality in the script.

So, Ticket to Paradise… see or skip? Easy. See as there’s lots to enjoy. Bouttier as the wise-beyond-his-years Gede is absolutely rubberneck-worthy, the scenery and backdrops are gorgeous if out of reach for most of us, and the film crackles with energy. But you’ll be watching movie stars at work, and you’ll never forget it.

Anyway, thanks to Lourd, Clooney and Roberts — who radiates an appealing groundedness and sanity, despite having been suffocatingly famous since her early 20s — “Ticket to Paradise” is a lot more enjoyable than it deserves to be.

Part of the appeal of Ticket to Paradise is seeing Roberts and Clooney together before they — and this type of glossy studio entertainment — become extinct.

While no one could accuse Ticket to Paradise of being a “great” movie, or even a “very good” one, there’s something about watching Clooney and Roberts butt up against each other in front of a screen-saver background that scratches a long-dormant itch.

The pace drags in the home stretch a bit, and the laughs dry up considerably. None of this matters much. George and Julia spark and sparkle, which is what the trailers promise, and it’s what the movie delivers.

Think of Ticket to Paradise like a postcard of beautiful people having fun in a beautiful place and you’ll get along just fine. Giving it much more thought than that won’t help this rom-com vehicle for George Clooney and Julia Roberts, although the “com” part proves a trifle deficient in a movie that’s significantly better when it’s sweet than salty.

Ticket to Paradise goes down as a footnote to the many superior rom-coms Roberts has sparkled in before. And if I wanted to watch Clooney in a tropical locale, I’d choose Alexander Payne’s lovely “The Descendants.”

We’re only about 20 minutes into the half-baked, ultra-lightweight, almost instantly forgettable rom-com “Ticket to Paradise” when our hearts start to sink, as we realize this big-screen re-teaming of Julia Roberts and George Clooney is quite likely going to be sideswiped and eventually sunk by a leaden screenplay that doesn’t come close to maximizing their massive respective star power.

Ticket to Paradise is all about the welcome sight of a pair of movie stars who know exactly what to do with their wattage.