New Years Eve Review

[Westside Steve]

New Year’s Eve

Warner Brothers

PG 13 118 min

 

I didn’t see VALENTINE’S DAY, a pretty well received romantic comedy from the same team as this one and to be honest had there been anything else current I’d have probably skipped this one too.

Garry Marshall (Penny’s older brother) is something of an icon in the business and knows a lot of people, most of which wound up in this film. I’m not even going to mention them all but I’ll make a general point.

No two hour script can do justice to all the characters in such a large ensemble especially with writing as weak as this. None of the actors have time to bring whatever talents they possess to the screen in so many short and interlocking scenes. That killed Stallone’s THE EXPENDABLES and has taken its toll here.

It’s basically a conglomerate of vignettes all centered around the ball drop in the big apple on New Year’s Eve. People are trying to rekindle lost love or find new passion or repair strained relationships or break out of a rut or die with dignity or even have a baby at the stroke of midnight. Honestly any of these could have been more interesting with a little more time. Unfortunately this script seems as if it was written in a hurry and by a high school lit class.

Fortunately the clichés and shopworn plot twists all seem to come together at the end and salvage the movie.

Oh it’s still not very good but as it rolled on the grade (IMO) trudged up the ladder from a D- to a solid C.

WSS

 

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