Making Waves

I'm getting a little tired of this premise. Music agent sent to her home town to check out a new band. A promotion is at stake. The boss keeps pressuring. The boss is overly controlling and this one is cliche, no she is worse than that. And if you love overused plot devices, there is a big development company looking at sucking up everything in the small town, so save the family business.

The fact that Amelia's high school boy friend is the lead of the band she's looking for might have been interesting, but that cat is out of the bag pretty early not to mention network previews gave that away. Were they going for that shock moment. If so, they blew all the suspense. The tension in the story is about signing F8's. So the way both of them act regarding the band makes no sense at first although that gets better.

The two main supporting actors are really bad.

The movie takes good advantage of the music venue. There is some original music.

The conflict, climax and ending go exactly like so many other movies in this genre, except for the part that is over the top sappy just before the final songs.

6.9 stars.

I would probably watch this movie again someday. It's not one of the greats, it's not one of the worst, it sits right in the middle of my average ratings. I like the actors, but the music is lacking. When I see a film like this, I expect higher quality and more variety in the music. The same couple of songs are repeated over and over, becoming worn out like an old pair of jeans. Unfortunately, this pair of jeans does not age well. There are several strange scenes in the beginning, you can tell they're trying to be awkward, but they pulled it off too well and it became overly awkward. That's fine. The movie was overall entertaining enough that I can round it up to a seven. 'Making Waves', I'll see you again in five years or so.

Amelia (Holland Roden) is a new executive at a small record label. She's struggling for approval from her boss who is in a battle with her exes' bigger record company. She goes home to attend a music festival to find elusive indie band "Figure 8". It turns out that the band is led by her former teen sweetheart Will (Corey Cott).

It's a Hallmark romance and that part is pretty simple. Holland is a solid lead. I expected a taller hunk to be the male lead. It's just visually more fun to have short girl looking up all the time. I guess they needed a real singer for the role. The song is above average. That is a nice side to the standard Hallmark main dish.

The movie revolved around a recording company junior executive hoping to land an up-and-coming band (whose lead singer turns out to be her high school boyfriend) while competing against a bigger company with deeper pockets. (There were other incidental issues in the back story, but they didn't affect the plot significantly.) The 2 leads. Holland Roden and Corey Cott, are attractive, personable and most importantly, decent actors. After losing actors to GAC, some of Hallmark's replacements have been obviously 2nd and 3rd stringers... back benchers. I think these 2 have a bright future with Hallmark. Additionally Cott is a talented singer. Sometimes giving leads singing scenes seems to be more for vanity than talent. Cott carried his scenes well.

My only quibble is with the background scenery. And it's with many movies, not just this one and not just Hallmark. It seems like no effort is made to make the scenery look like it should. The movie takes place on the Outer Banks of NC. The OBX is a giant barrier sand bar. There is only 1 spot that's more than a few feet above sea level: the hill in Kitty Hawk where the Wright Brothers first flew their flying machine. There aren't even many large trees let alone mountains and forests. But this movie showed large rugged forested mountains everywhere. I get most of these movies are made in Canada and especially around Vancouver. The city and area is beautiful in its own right, but it looks *nothing* like the OBX. It's too bad more effort isn't made to find backgrounds a bit flatter, less mountainous and a little more like a sandbar. It would be more believable.

Hallmark seems to have this obsession lately with high school exes getting back together after many years apart. And in all of these movies, these couples broke up in high school after a weak misunderstanding rather than the far more obvious issue breaking up high school couples: They grew up and moved on. Why have none of these people moved on?

There isn't enough drama here. The main couple falls back together without any effort, which doesn't make for a good movie. I prefer the movies where there is a spark of excitement about meeting someone new rather than running over old ground.

I agree with other comments. If you are going to include the location as part of your storyline then you should film a good chunk of the movie on location.