I had not seen this when it first came out because it just did not interest me.  This was a remake of a movie from 1987 with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn (which I have never seen) and I had heard a lot of negatives from the critics about the film.  That does not usually prevent me from going to a film, but the scheduling of seeing this is what kept me away.

Today, however, I had an open spot in the afternoon and Overboard fit into my schedule so I decided to give it a chance.

And it was better than I thought.

Honestly, the film started off and I was not a fan.  I really disliked the character of Leonardo (Eugenio Derbez) and I was ready to check out of the film.  I actually even considered leaving early.

And I found it pretty unrealistic that Kate (Anna Faris) would put this man through such a travesty of pretending to be his wife.  It reeked of fraud and kidnapping and so I found it to be a really rotten thing. Add to that that the kids were involved too and I was having trouble with the plot.

Then something odd happened.  I started to enjoy the story.

Sure, it was predictable as heck.  There were no surprises or twists along the way.  Exactly what you would expect to happen, happened.

But I found the story to have some charm that I did not anticipate.

I think most of the credit for that goes to Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris.  They were very strong and charming together.  I liked them as a couple and I was able to get past the idea that she was basically cruelly condemning this man to a life that is not his own because of their connection.  The sweetness of the pairing overcame the weakness of the story.

Yes, the movie itself is not that great, but I found it to be a sweet film.  I am not sure that the film needed to be remade.  I have some problems with the ending of the movie especially SPOILERS how quickly and easily Leo forgives Kate, but I really enjoyed the two of them together.  I liked a bunch of the secondary characters and Kate’s three girls were cute and funny.  There was heart in this movie and I did not expect that.  It turns out that, after the first 15-25 minutes of the movie (which was terrible), Overboard really came around and made me happy that I found time to see it.

3 stars