Wikimedia Commons assures me that this is Emily Blunt… is anyone else unconvinced?

The last time we came back to Costa Rica I brought with us some old copies of “Entertainment Weekly” that my family was done with, and some of the movies that came up in lots of reviews and interesting comments happened to involve Emily Blunt. I then decided to watch three of them (I guess four if you count Looper, which I saw a few weeks ago…but I don’t count that one since I didn’t actually realize it was Emily Blunt until the end credits). Here are my flash reviews of each:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Kudos to the only movie that has ever made me give half a shit about fishing.

This is the story of a Yemeni sheik who wants to bring British salmon to Yemen. As someone who can’t eat fish and doesn’t really care about them, you’d think this story would leave me cold, but it didn’t. Blunt does a good job, and the sheik is very good, too. But Ewan McGregor certainly gives us the best performance of this film. I hadn’t realized that it’s been a while since I saw him in a movie, and it’s a good reminder of how good and naturally charismatic he is.

Blunt Force Rating: 14/17

My Summer of Love

Answers to the FAQ: 1) No, I could barely understand what that other girl was saying most of the time. 2) Yes, there are indeed boobs. 3) Most likely.

This was on an “Entertainment Weekly” list of “The 50 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen” or something like that. I had actually seen some of the movies, but I’m making a deliberate effort to see more of them (and more about that list in a future post). In any case, in this movie Blunt is a rich girl who befriends a poor girl. They fall in love, but at times we get the feeling that Blunt is just using the poor girl as a plaything. But it’s a good compact movie (less than an hour and half), and Blunt gives an excellent although alienating performance. Unlike Salmon, though, this movie might be hard to re-watch.

Blunt Force Rating: 13/17

The Five-Year Engagement

Alright, but seriously: am I the only one who doesn’t see any resemblance between this Emily Blunt and the Doppelgänger in the first picture??

I didn’t have very high expectations for this movie, but I do like the two main actors (Jason Segel and… ach, crap, what’s her name? Oh yeah, Emily Blunt!). However, during the end credits I discovered that Judd Apatow was involved and then I was fairly amazed that I’d not realized that before. Like most Apatow comedies, the relationships between the characters seem realistic and less glossed-over than most movies. The characters seem genuine, and one gets the feeling that they might have really existed somewhere. There are some drawbacks, too, though. The movie is quite a bit longer than it needs to be (then again, if it were shorter or cut differently, it’d seem unrealistic, so what the hell am I complaining about?), and there are a few subplots that seem a bit overlong as well. But Angela and I both enjoyed this movie, so that’s a plus. Highlight: I know it’s stupid, but for some reason Violet (Blunt) and her sister doing Elmo and Cookie Monster voices cracked me up.

Blunt Force Rating: 12/17

What about you? Have you seen any of these, or any other Emily Blunt movie? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.