Love in the Great Smoky Mountains: A National Park Romance

This is really difficult to watch.

The whole thing has this amateurish feel about it.

The actors are various degrees of bad. They literally just recite lines but are not believable in their roles. I couldn't believe they were happy or mad or excited. It was obvious throughout that they were just actors badly cast in some roles.

The plot is based on a potentially good idea but the final result is like "color by numbers": you understand the idea but it looks unnatural. There is no spark, no heart, no creativity.

It works as background noise, if you need to work but can't allocate too much attention to the TV and, for some reason, you don't want to listen to music. Otherwise don't waste your time.

The premise is common. Former lovers with bad break up are thrown together. Also there is a treasure hunt. There is also a secondary romance.

The initial meeting of Haley and Rob is so cold, it should have ended the movie there. Haley was furious about the past. You could almost see her blood boiling. Turns out Rob was pretty hurt also. And like so many of these movies, that tension is ignored almost immediately. Apparently some of it still lingered, but they acted pretty friendly. Like Rob teaching Haley to cast a fishing line. Everything between them.

I'd be curious how accurate several things were. Do real archaeologists use shovels? Would someone whose life is the outdoors and has experience in the Smokey Mountains go off alone on a very difficult trail? Would he run on it?

I was so turned off by the initial animosity and the complete reversal, I can't tell you if there was any chemistry between Kebbel and Roerig. I didn't really trust Rob.

The climax is pretty dumb. Then ending is worse. I was surprised that there was little or no conflict leading into the climax. I expected something that didn't happen.

We either love or at least enjoy most Hallmark movies. We've watched some of them over and over again. Not this one...

The dialogue and the acting seemed so forced with this one, that we couldn't get through it. We tried. We gave it at least an hour. But we were suffering. The plot is decent. It's something about the casting and the actors. The dialogue seems forced. So many others could have carried this movie so much better. There seemed to be little chemistry. It's not the actors themselves. They'd all do better in different roles.

At the time of this review, 26 people had rated it, with ratings obviously higher than the one the four of us who were watching it came up with.

Oh, I love the main actress... She has been exceptional in her previous Hallmark movies I've seen, but there is a massive lack of cohesion between any of the characters in this movie. Although I appreciate all of the background they give regarding the Indians, it seems the unnatural conversations are terribly memorized and too slow for the flow of communication. This is quite disappointing because the previews of this movie were so cute.

I am so happy to see that this film was actually made in the Smoky mountains. I was expecting another Canada location but much to my surprise, there are four filming locations in the United States.

I was disappointed with this movie. The concept was good, but the execution wasn't. I've seen Ariel in other movies and she has had great chemistry with other male leads, but in this film there was nothing, not even a fizzle. It was disappointing because I've seen her in the other films and really liked her. She was okay in this film, but without the chemistry it just fell flat.

The scenery was lovely, but I don't watch hallmark movies because of the scenery. It's just a nice bonus if the setting adds to the movie. The story of trying to find this magnificent stone was okay, but finding it was way too easy. It was hard to believe that it hadn't been found already.