Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

05 April 2008

27 Dresses, dir. Anne Fletcher (2008)

NIKKI says:
I hate movie weddings. I absolutely cannot stand to watch actors fake their way through what are pretty much always overly sugary vows about love and honour and whatever. I'd rather the happy couple just go, "Yep, we love each other, that's all we need." But, no. The dresses and cakes and super-perfect hair-dos all have to come out. My main thought watching this film was, "I hope they don't ruin the end by having Katherine Heigl get married."

But how else could they end it?

But then I guess I can overlook the predictable and somewhat sugary ending because other parts of this movie actually were fairly good. It's set-up is ultra-standard, that always-a-bridesmaid thing with our lead girl torn between the guy she loves who loves someone else and the guy we all know suits her down to the ground but she thinks is lame. Who will she pick?

Meanwhile, she has to plan her own little sister's wedding to that man she actually loves. So that complicates things. By movie's end she will have done some pretty catty things to get back at her sister, who is a big fat liar, and while she'll feel bad for them, we'll be hooting and hollering that she's a Riot Grrl of the highest order who gave only what was deserved. But the movie's a bit nicer than all that, and everyone apologises in time for everyone else's big day.

So, how to lift a standard romantic and ultra-girlie film from becoming another My Best Friend's Wedding, with stupid characters, gimmicky situations and false feeling? I don't really kknow how they did it, because the same things could be said about this movie, but they didn't seem so bad here. I think it has to do with the actors. I'm sorry, but I hated Julia Roberts in that other film. Here, we get Katherine Heigl who is sweet and funny and seems entirely without ego. She plays things purely with her heart here, there's no hatred or anger. And I liked that. We like her. And James Marsden was all funny and charming instead of serious Scott Cyclops and it was just fun watching him robot dance to "Benny and the Jets" -- way better than Julia doing the big-laugh during "Say a Little Prayer".

So, yeah. Good actors = Good time? I'll stick with that. Nothing outstanding, but better than your average. Still hated the end.

3/5

Jumper, dir. Doug Liman (2008)

NIKKI says:
Oh, where to begin? You know, I've got no real issue with the plot -- that a guy who can teleport and lives large because of it finds out there are others like him, and others who don't like him, and so becomes involved in an ancient war to wipe out his kind because only God should be able to teleport.

You have to have a set up, right?

So, that was fine. The problem was with all the damn holes in the story, and how loose ends were never tied. More infuriating is the fact that much of these holes could have been puttied over with just a few script tweaks. I thought there were test audiences for these sorts of things? Did no one at the Jumper screening question how easily David, the jumper, slid back into his hometown bar eight years after he was presumed dead? Not a single old friend (all of whom happened to be at the bar that day, luckily) stopped the guy in his tracks and said, "We thought you were dead." It was all, "He's back!" And the bully who caused David's supposed death had no concerns whatsoever but to go and beat him up again?

Not one solitary person at a screening, during the writing of the script, during the film's entire conceptualisation (if that is a word) even stopped to think, "But wait, he's dead -- that would have caused a sensation, locally."

If that wasn't stupid enough, after five minutes back in town, David's high school sweetheart travels to Rome with him on a whim. Becuase bar chicks in small towns can do that, no problem. Following that, though, she gets arrested by Italian authorities, and spends much of the film saying things like, "What's going on?"

If only someone would tell her, so that perhaps we'd know, too. The basic concept -- got it. But the stuff with David's mum made no sense. Why does she "give him a head start" at the end after helping him to escape in Italy? How could she have simply abandoned her son? Why does Jamie Bell's character go all the way to Japan just to drive a fast car in the middle of the Jumper/Paladin War? Why are we supposed to like David when he has spent his life ripping us off and buying big TVs? Why are we supposed to like David when the day before he reconnected with his old girlfriend, he flew to London for the sole purpose of getting laid? Which he did?

Oh, movie.

Hayden Christensen is not doing himself any favours with schlock like this. He's a good actor. He should choose more roles like the one he had in Shattered Glass. I fear if he keeps doing this sort of thing, no one will give him a chance like that again. Hayden -- save yourself!

1/5