BOTTOM LINE: “The Tourist” is an uninspiring mess, delivering a tepid, uninteresting and witless narrative whose main stars have no chemistry whatsoever.

THE GOOD: All films start with an idea, and the idea for “The Tourist” is actually a good one. Angelina Jolie plays Elise, a beautiful woman who is being trailed in Paris by Scotland Yard who are after her former lover, Alexander Pearce. Elise receives a note from Pearce, telling her to board a certain train and to select a man who is similar in appearance to him so as to throw the detectives off track. It starts off innocently enough but becomes much more complicated with the arrival of a British gangster who wants the money back that Pearce stole from him. This sort of intrigue in a narrative harkens back to old-style films that are rarely made any more, and the beautiful of images of certain European destinations, particularly Venice, is a sight to behold in this film.

THE BAD: Given the talent involved, one would have to ask, “what were they thinking?” The entire film falls flat on its weak script and direction. There are so many opportunities for wit, action and fun, but they are not exploited in any way, shape or form. The film is quite dialogue driven, and because that dialogue is so inherently weak, it feels like a pedestrian, boring exercise. If the filmmakers had built up the action (of which there isn’t any) to compensate, the film may have been passable, but as they did not, the bulk of the film is spent watching Jolie and Depp play it by the numbers without any sense of inspiration or fun. Paul Bettany’s subplot as the Scotland Yard inspector hunting down Pearce could have led to some great moments, both in action and comedy, particularly with the interactions with his boss played by Timothy Dalton; but this again is not exploited. The biggest travesty of course is that Jolie and Depp have no chemistry on screen whatsoever. It is almost as if they acted apart from each other and then a clever editor spliced them together so they could appear in the same shot. Although this film must have sounded good on paper, “The Tourist” is a complete waste of time.