David Twohy, the filmmaker responsible for the sci-fi cult favorite "Pitch Black," creates a deconstructionist suspense thriller that plays like a college screenwriting project gone awry.
Geeky Cliff and spunky Cydney (played by Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) go on a dream honeymoon in Honolulu where the island's lush beauty attracts them to a mountainous hike only accessible on foot, or by helicopter, or kayak.
News of the brutal murder of a couple not unlike themselves makes Cliff and Cydney suspicious of two other couples that they encounter along the way.
It would be cheating to go into any of the film's third act surprises that pull the rug out from under everything that has gone on before, but suffice it to say that the revelation of a seriously flawed plot device serves merely to ramp up a predictable series of violent set pieces.
"A Perfect Getaway" is an example of an amateurish attempt at reinventing a suspense formula that is rarely done right.
There just isn't much satisfaction in playing a game where the dealer is playing with a different deck of cards. It's a childish kind of filmmaking that Alfred Hitchcock would call irresponsible.
Rated R. 98 mins.
