New Year’s Eve (2011)

New Year’s Eve (2011)

Man, this movie is really appalling.  It feels like it was written by a committee of business people and not by someone creative.  The movie is so fluffy and cheap that I started to shake my head with every cliché that presented itself on screen.  Then, the casting people decided to contaminate the entire movie with really bad actors and actresses. 

Director Garry Marshall’s direction is bland and sometime TV-of-the-Week quality.  I mean this movie feels so cheap and sappy that it feels more like a TV movie than an actual theatrical film.  Marshall doesn’t seem all that interested in getting the best performances from his people either as most of the cast looks either bored or confused. 

The movie tries to tug at our hearts with speeches of what the New Year will bring, but it comes across as being more science fiction than an episode of the old Dr. Who show.   If this movie had a face, I’d slap it for being too phony and cheap.  After a speech from one character talking about New Year’s, I wanted to flip the bird at the screen. 

Nice try, Captain.

-Ashton Kutcher is in this movie:  And, the movie presents him in the most cliché storyline.  Kutcher finds himself trapped in an elevator with Lea Michele (Glee).  They discover they’re more than their appearances and become close.  Kutcher is phoning it in, even for him.  Michele is just playing a slightly older version of her character from Glee.  I almost turned off the movie during the beginning of this story when the lift stalled. 

-Katherine Heigl:  Another terrible actress that completely brings down the already bad movie.  Heigl is so unlikable in this movie.  Why are people still casting her in movies?  Basically she is still in love with a character by Jon Bon Jovi.  Jovi is terrible too. 

-Robert De Niro and Halle Berry are pretty good.  De Niro is playing a dying man that wants to live just enough to see the New Year.  The story they’re in isn’t that bad, and would have worked in its own movie. 

-Zac Efron and Michelle Pfeiffer: This is another story, if fleshed out, would have made an okay fluffy romantic comedy.  Michelle plays a sheepish woman who decides to come out her shell by creating a New Year’s Resolution.  Efron, a bike courier, helps her complete her list.   Pfeiffer is actually very good in her role, and I could have seen a movie surrounding her and Efron, because they work well together. 

-Josh Duhamel:  At least he’s not fighting robots right?    

- Hilary Swank:  Is she worst than Heigl?  I am not sure, but at least she is keeping her score up with her string of failures of recent.  Swank, it is time to take some time off.  You are the new Nic Cage. 

There are two stories that could have easily stood on their own via movies.  The movie shortchanges them due to the dumber stories taking up the bulk of the movie.  However, the acting and writing are so weak that that movie can’t get over its own sappy drawbacks.  I thought we were past this cheap sentimental bullshit.  Avoid this movie, unless you want to induce puking or death. 

Grade:  D-