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    New Year's Eve

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    “New Year’s Eve” feels like it was an attempt by the Hallmark channel to create a movie that would boost its sales around December 31st. Even if that was the case, it went horribly wrong. It’s like an anthology TV series whose plots kept getting whittled down until they only ran 10-15 minutes so they stitched all of the stories together, set them all in New York and decided that instead of creating one show, they would create a mega-movie. Too bad it’s no good.

    There are a whopping eight plots to follow so let’s try and get them all quickly, in no particular order: Ashton Kutcher plays a grouch that doesn’t like New Year’s Eve because a girl dumped him on that date. He’s on his way to throw a bunch of decorations in the trash when he gets trapped in an elevator with Elise (Lea Michele), a woman who’s eager to see the ball drop in Times Square because she’s singing as a backup dancer for Daniel Jensen (Jon Bon Jovi) Jensen is crossing his fingers, hoping that his ex-fiancé Laura (Katherine Heigl) will get back together with him. Sarah Jessica Parker plays a mom whose daughter wants to meet up with a hot guy at the New Year’s Party. Mom doesn’t want her daughter to go because she thinks she’s too young, but the girl disobeys and leaves anyway. Zac Effron plays a courier (who happens to be Ashton Kutcher’s roommate) who wants to get some tickets to an awesome party. To get these tickets, he’s going to help Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer) fulfill her list of New Year’s resolutions before midnight. We also have two pairs of pregnant couples who are competing to have the “New Year’s Baby”, which will win them $25,000. In that same hospital, terminally ill Stan (Robert De Niro) dreams of seeing the ball drop. Josh Duhamel plays Sam, a man who, after attending his best friend’s wedding must drive to New York and perform an important speech for his family company. Unfortunately, he gets into a car accident and must scramble to get there. Finally, we have Claire (Hilary Swank) She’s in charge of the New Year’s celebration in Times Square. Unfortunately, she’s plagued by technical difficulties. Maybe Ludacris’ lack of acting talent can help some kind of late Christmas miracle arrive to save the day!

    There are only three good things about this movie, with the third one being debatable. The first is 1/8 of the overall story, the one between Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Effron. It’s predictable and kind of cheesy, but these actors, despite the age difference play off each other very well. They both have a lot of charisma and run circles around everyone else. It also happens to be the most imaginative of all the stories, particularly because Zac Effron has to come up with all of these ways to fulfill Ingrid’s wishes. The story also has a sweet conclusion and actually could have been fleshed out to become a decent movie.

    The second best thing about this movie is Chris ’Ludacris’ Bridges. He’s so wooden that he is laugh-out-loud funny every single time. For the most part, the movie is cheesy, manipulative and predictable so when he shows up on screen, acting as the least believable cop you’ve ever seen, spouting his dialogue like he’s supposed to be a deflated Terminator, he brings joy to the audience. If the wraparound story had been his character meeting everybody else and lending a hand to them all (for example, driving the pregnant couple to the hospital, helping Sarah Jessica Parker find her daughter, helping Michelle Pfeiffer cross off a resolution from her list) this movie would have become one of the greatest unintentional comedies of the holidays. He’s not in it much, but considering how unfunny the rest of the movie is, he gets a special mention.

    The last “good thing” about this movie is that there are a lot of good-looking, well-known actors in it. If you enjoy just looking at these people, well then you have that to look forward to.

    Other than those three things, boy does this movie suck. First of all, everyone knows that if there’s one magical holiday during December, it sure isn’t New Year’s; it’s Christmas. I really mean it when I say this film feels like an excuse to sell more greeting cards. It oozes desperation. “New Year’s Eve” is the product of someone who looked at the rows of DVDs in a video rental store and said, “Wow, there hasn’t been a movie about New Year’s Eve made in a long time! ” It’s just a collection of attractive stars and starlets, getting together over that one “magical night” in stories that fail to win your interest. This movie lasts 118 minutes. Let’s take off an estimated 5 minutes for the credits and that leaves us with less than 15 minutes per storyline. That means none of the stories get much development and even less can be said about the characters, who are not memorable and start blurring into each other as the plots get piled on and on and on.

    Do not get fooled into seeing “New Year’s Eve”. If you’re like me and you like to give yourself little traditions every time a special date rolls around, you’re probably thinking this one might be a good one to check out on a yearly basis, but it isn’t. Within a few minutes you’ll be making a resolution to find something better to watch on December 31st, so beat yourself to the punch and watch anything else. “End of Days” may be bad, but at least it was enjoyably bad, unlike this dreary affair. (On DVD, August 3, 2014)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  1.12.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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