‘Winter’s Tale’ looks fantastic and has a great supporting cast, but the plot is so erratic the film completely falls apart under it’s own nonsense.

In ‘Winter’s Tale”, Colin Farrell plays Peter Lake, a thief who is caught trying to break into a mansion in New York City. He is caught almost immediately by a young girl named Beverly (Jess/ica Brown-Findlay) who is dying of tuberculosis. Soon after Peter is found by demon gangster Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe) but saved by a white horse named Athansor causing him to time travel to the present, in love with Beverly and endlessly pursued by Soames.

I would like to believe the novel ‘Winter’s Tale’ is worth a read, but his film had such a randomly constructed plot I couldn’t imagine how it would read a as book. The film has a great cast all around, including a surprising performance by Will Smith, and the film’s fairy tale style looks great on screen, but the film does itself a disservice by ignoring plot explanation and drowning in cliches and lazily convenient acts of magic.

One of the weakest aspect of ‘Winter’s Tale’ is the central romance. The relationship between the two leads is a big focus for the film, but the two never seem to feel like they share the rich love the film wants you to feel. Farrell is good most of the film, but he really falters when he has to really bring an emotional edge to a scene.

Maybe with better direction ‘Winter’s Tale’ could have been the ‘Hugo’ or ‘Stardust’ of 2014, but the films visuals can’t overcome the flaws in the films writing. Much of the cast does a good job in their roles, especially Russell Crowe, but they don’t don’t get much to work with in terms of writing or dialogue at times.

2 out of 5 Stars