New Year's Eve (2011)

2/5

New Year's Eve is the bland, uninspired follow-up to Garry Marshall's mediocre Valentine's Day. There is no story to speak of. There are instead about a dozen trite, overused blueprints of ideas that are empty and meaningless. They are all instead vehicles for the two dozen stars to be themselves on camera and try to make money without doing any acting whatsoever. The movie over-relies on archetypes, movie tropes, and celebrity status. Lea Michele sings. Jon Bon Jovi sings. Robert De Niro plays a gruff old guy with regret. And Sofia Vergara plays a sexy lady with an accent. It's the same thing we've seen over and over again. (And Sofia Vergara was significantly funnier on Conan than in this movie.)

The best thing about this movie is the Zac Efron and Michelle Pfeiffer storyline. It had cutesy charm, much more than I expected. But even their portion of the movie lacked motivation and backstory. The other thing I liked about it is a line Josh Duhamel says (although he is in fact just quoting his dead father, and it seems to come out of nowhere): "What would you do today if you knew you wouldn't fail? Now go out and do it." Despite all the ridiculous star power in this movie, it holds no power and deserves only two stars. Avoid.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598822/

Valentine's Day (2010)

3/5

Uhh, I have no idea why Valentine's Day has been getting such terrible reviews, but it is utterly undeserving of such negativity. It was a fine romantic comedy, equal parts predictable (Kutcher and Garner) and equal parts unpredictable (Cooper and Roberts). It had cliches, but it also had surprises. (Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Ashton Kutcher plays a charismatic hero with aplomb and sympathy.) And it made me laugh and smile, which is exactly what it set out to do.

The plot is too complicated to type out here (or maybe I just don't remember all the details), but that doesn't really matter. Just know that it's about a bunch of men and women who get into and out of relationships on Valentine's Day. The technical aspects are nothing to write home about. The characters were simple but the acting was good. Some of the stories were not as good as some of the others, but the ones that were good were very good. There was some repetition and it felt just a tad too long, but all in all it was a solid romantic comedy. Watch this movie if you're interested in it; I don't think you'll be disappointed.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817230/