It is hard to believe, but of an ensemble boasting four Academy Award winners and two more nominees, it’s the lightweight Zac Efron who’s the class of “New Year’s Eve.”
Director Garry Marshall takes the same sickly sweet and multi-string approach as he did in last year’s soapy “Valentine’s Day. ” In the follow-up, also written by Katherine Fugate, “New Year’s Eve” tells a dozen or so interlocking stories occurring on one eventful Dec. 31 in New York City. And, as they did before, Fugate and Marshall don’t leave any demographic untouched. We’ve got expectant parents, a dying father, the military, a teen looking for her first midnight kiss, ex-lovers reuniting, sour-on-love singles coupling up, a middle-age woman asserting her independence and so on. Dog lovers even get in on the action.
The stories play out with Marshall’s signature plot contrivances and coincidences. You can see everything coming three scenes away. Heck, you’ll have all the dots connected by the end of the first act. Nothing is surprising, except the usually wishy-washy Efron, looking more beefcake than teeny-bopper dreamboat. He’s clearly not taking anything seriously and he’s having a blast traipsing around Manhattan with Oscar-nominee Michelle Pfeiffer. Her timid secretary shtick and his “don’t hate the playa” bravado work for some reason. (It’s not a cougar-cub thing, but that certainly would have upped the ante.) She has just quit a thankless job as an administrative assistant to a record company mogul. She enlists Efron’s bike courier to complete her bucket list of impossible New Year’s resolutions (save a life, go to Bali, walk all five boroughs in a day) before midnight. If he succeeds, then she’ll hook him up with passes to the record company’s party, the hottest ticket in town.
You might be lured by the name-brand cast that includes Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Robert De Niro, Hilary Swank and Pfeiffer, but there just isn’t any big payoff. Again, Marshall squanders the talents of each of his big guns. Delivering his performance from a hospital bed, De Niro’s feet never even touch the ground. Breslin’s orange hair is distracting. Swank has the film’s biggest part as the coordinator of the ball-drop in Times Square. She also gets to deliver a greeting-card worthy speech about second chances. Gag!
Also showing up are rom-com fixtures Jessica Biel, Katherine Heigl, Sarah Jessica Parker, Josh Duhamel. Then there’s Jon Bon Jovi, playing, what else? A rock star. And Sofia Vergara doing a version of her “Modern Family” character and Lea Michelle from “Glee.”
It’s Ludacris – yes, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges is, here, too – but, Ashton Kutcher isn’t the worst part of the film. That honor goes to Biel and Seth Meyers as expectant parents vying to deliver the first baby of the New Year. Her baby bump looks as phony as they come and the newborn looks the size of a 4-month-old.
Since this flick is all about coming together to celebrate hope, we can only pray this is Marshall’s last foray into the holiday du jour genre. That, revelers, would be an occasion well worth celebrating.
No comments:
Post a Comment