New Netflix movie Purple Hearts has entered the top 10 most watched movies of all time on the streamer – despite unfavorable reviews and competition in the form of ultra-high budget The Gray Man.
Purple Hearts stars Nicholas Galitzine as a Marine named Luke and Sofia Carson as an aspiring singer called Cassie. The duo have polar opposite political views, but get married for the military benefits. Disaster strikes when Luke is injured in action. As Cassie helps him recover, real feelings begin to develop between them.
The film has become the seventh most watched Netflix movie (opens in new tab) of all time, beating The Irishman, The Kissing Booth 2, and The Unforgivable. It didn't manage to best The Gray Man, though, which is the fourth most popular Netflix film. Purple Hearts has a low 29% Critics Score on Rotten Tomatoes (opens in new tab), with a massive 70% Audience Score.
"But fealty to an obvious opposites-attract formula doesn’t itself ruin the film. Rather, it's that it lacks any real spark between characters we're meant to root for, compounded by utterly facile political discussions in which she repeatedly capitulates to his point of view, while a number of scenes that are key to the plot happen entirely off screen," says Luke Y. Thompson of AV Club (opens in new tab). "In a Claire Denis movie, perhaps, that's a bold and deliberate choice. In one that's a showcase for Sofia Carson and broad, pandering flag-waving, it's either financial corner-cutting or creative laziness."
Bust's (opens in new tab) Margo Moran also sees problems with the movie: "There's nothing wrong with feel-good entertainment that may not reinvent the wheel, that makes audiences smile and feel content with a cozy happy ending. There is,
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