Megamind
To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.
Gutsycurene
Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
SimonJack
Late in the year, Hollywood and the major TV networks begin cranking out movies for the holiday season. But well before the end of the last century, all the Christmas plots imaginable had been done. Some real Christmas movies - but not very many, have been made since the late 20th century. They have themes of charity, giving, family reunions, love, reconciliations, and yes, sometimes romance. But by and large, the output that is labeled Christmas or holiday films in the 21st century is no more than comedy-romance or even drama that happens around the holidays. Such is this 2011 Hallmark channel film, "Holiday Engagement." It takes place around Thanksgiving and that makes it a holiday film. Just about every imaginable plot has been made into one of these films, which makes them commonplace. So, the only thing that sets one off usually is the characters as played by the cast. This film has some fine, better than normal performances by three of the cast. But it also has just enough of a different twist in the plot to hold one's interest. The lead, Hillary Burns (played by Bonnie Somerville) gets dumped by her fiancé just before going home for Thanksgiving. She hires an actor to play his part, rather than disappoint her mother. There's much more at play here in the family, and this is far out. But the leading cast make it work as a gentle comedy romance and mild family drama. Hillary's role is OK - her crying and sad scenes with her mother and before that are not very realistic. The six stars for this film are due mostly to her parents, with some extra credit for her hired fiancé. Shelley Long is very good as Hillary's mother, Meredith Burns; and Sam McMurray is very good as her father, Roy Burns. Finally, Jordan Bridges is very good as David, the actor whom she hires to stand in as her fiancé. He is the son of Beau Bridges and grandson of Lloyd Bridges. Of course, everyone knows where this story will go right away. As with all such the films, the fun (or lack thereof) is in the details of how the story gets to the end. This one is watchable but not special to run out and buy.The funniest line in the movie happens after Roy's effort to deep fat fry the turkey fails. The outdoor cooker he has rigged ejects the turkey. So, the family heads for a Mexican restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. Meredith hands her water glass to the waiter and says, "Oh, um, I asked for seltzer. This looks like tap water with cheese floating in it."
Jack Vasen
This story is very predictable and unfortunately not that well done. There are however some good moments.Who did the lighting? It was horrendous. I don't know how many scenes there were where faces were poorly lit. In at least one, an entire face was difficult to see at all and in several scenes partial faces were badly shadowed. In one scene the youngest sister looked like her lip was bleeding or lipstick badly smudged.Shelly Long started out horrible. Part of this was intentional, but to me she overplayed it. And she looked bad. She got a little better as the film went on.There were some attempts at humor, many of which were ridiculous situations like Thanksgiving at the Mexican restaurant. To me most of them were barely funny and some were kind of funny.***SPOILERS*** Bonnie Somerville and Jordan Bridges did not sell the story that justified Hillary ending up with David. Part of that was the story and that they didn't have enough screen time. David had barely admitted he was over Lindsay, and Hillary had barely decided she hated Jason and the next thing, Hillary and David are professing love for one another.I loved when Bonnie Somerville sang with Bridges. Bridges wasn't great but Somerville was. And it was romantic.The final montage at the church and after was nice and also romantic.
angelbaby9331
I knew how this movie was going to play out after the first line of dialogue. Pretty and perfectly nice woman is dumped by her rich, but good-for-nothing boyfriend and can't admit it to her overbearing mother. So what's a girl to do? Fall in love with her fake boyfriend, obviously.The movie tried really hard to be good, and I guess it could have been worse. But it was so carefully planned to be so fluffy, that every moment could be called ages before it happened.The script was just barely above being flat and the actors all gave it a valiant effort. But the message is force-fed and obvious. Twenty minutes in I was ready for it to be over. By the time it was half over, it was just excruciating.
JaynaB
If you are avoiding this movie because you dislike the Duff sisters, fear not. Even though Haley Duff gets top billing, she doesn't get more than about 10 minutes of screen time, for much of which she's in the background, and maybe five lines of dialogue.This movie is only slightly more improbable than a lot of seasonal romantic comedies. The trope of bringing an imposter as your date to a a family event is not really grounded in reality anyway, so if you're willing to suspend disbelief that far, it's a nice enough diversion for a couple of hours around Thanksgiving.The cast is reasonably solid, if under-exercised, with some halfway decent comedy chops available (but not accessed) in Shelley Long and Sam McMurray. The two leads are cute and sad by turns, mostly at appropriate moments, and sing well together for one nice scene. Other supporting characters... well, they look their parts and speak their lines but don't expect to find gold in their emotional range.The script and performances didn't quite gel, leaving plenty of avenues for both comedy and heart under-utilized. Real dramatic situations were barely nodded at in passing while the most potentially humorous moments were signalled more by the characters' laughter than by any similar urge in the audience. If you combined 'The Family Stone' (where only Sarah Jessica Parker is lacking the necessary depth of character) with 'My Best Friend's Wedding' (where everything is deliberately shallow and the moments of heart stand out better for it), and made a college film class movie, this is about what you'd get.
