Ticket to Paradise  ★★½

IN AN odd twist, the romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise may attract more tourists to Bali but wasn’t actually filmed there.

Despite being set in Bali, the film was shot almost wholly in Queensland. Why I’m not sure.

Perhaps the Indonesian government refused to let Julia Robert’s back in after the debacle that was Eat, Pray, Love which she also filmed partly in Bali a decade ago.

Setting aside, Ticket to Paradise basically does exactly what you imagine from its advertising poster featuring Robert’s and George Clooney… an entirely predictable but still pleasant, escapist experience.

Robert’s cut her teeth on rom-coms starting way back in Pretty Woman but hasn’t actually made one for a decade. Ticket to Paradise is also her first film in six years.

Clooney hasn’t made a similar film since 1996 but perhaps needed one at the moment after his last few film projects weren’t successful financially or critically.

They play a divorced couple who barely get on for the sake of their adult daughter who has just graduated and is planning to study law.

But first she is off to Bali for a holiday where she has a whirlwind romance and decides to stay and get married.

Her parents are horrified and agree to put their differences aside, travel to Bali and try to stop the wedding.

Hijinks ensue with predictable results all round. We’ll, kind of. Despite our screening being fairly full, there weren’t a lot of laughs.

Surprisingly the film is also a bit light on in the romance stakes, but it’s the star power that gets everything over the line.

Clooney and Roberts were literally made for this kind of stuff and their old-fashioned screen chemistry is the reason to take a look.