'Allied' feels forced, despite A-list stars

In the War II romance "Allied," Robert Zemeckis has resurrected the espionage thriller in all its classical glamour with a knowingness that's both impressively grand and stiffly hollow. Thus the crisp period images of "Allied," despite high-wattage stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, never feel far removed from their storyboards.

"Allied" begins with a parachutist drifting onto the Moroccan desert in 1942. He is Max Vatan (Pitt), a Canadian spy working for the British, so handsomely outfitted that he could have fallen not from the sky but out of another firmament: "Lawrence of Arabia."

He's picked up by his contact and handed a case full of guns, a wad of cash and - most lethal of all - a wedding ring. He meets up with a French agent in Casablanca, a location chosen as if to summon the spirits of old-fashioned cinema. From Max's first encounter in a nightclub with Marianne Beausejour (Cotillard), they are already in their roles. While secretly plotting to assassinate a Nazi official, they pose as a married couple and go to great lengths to put up appearances.

Their mission unfolds briskly, with curiously little suspense. But the more important drama is in the cracks to their elaborate pretense, the hints to their true selves.

Despite forging a relationship on falsehoods, Max and Marianne fall in love, return to London and settle into married life. As a pair, they are an undeniably alluring couple, but their connection feels slight.

The twist in Steven Knight's script, however, is that once they are living happily with their baby, Max's superiors inform him that his wife is a German spy. And he has 72 hours to test her.

Here, "Allied" amounts to something more than great costumes (courtesy of Joanna Johnston) and excellent production design (Gary Freeman). And the most convincing emotion in the thoroughly choreographed war drama is its melancholy sense of mortality.