ironhorse_iv
Another year is winding to a close and it's time to look back over the triumphs and the failures, friendships made and relationships ended. Whether you are celebrating with a huge party or a single glass of champagne at home, New Year's Eve is synonymous with reflection over the months gone by and what we seek in the future. Nevertheless, I can't say, the same with the movie 'New Year's Eve'. It's not worth remembering or celebrating in any year of your life. Released a few weeks before the 2011 New Year's Eve & taking its gimmicky influence once again, from 2003's hit holiday film "Love Actually', director Gary Marshall hope to ride the tiresome clichés big ensemble anthology holiday comedies back to the bank like he did with 2010s film, 'Valentine Day'. With twice the budget, this new holiday film was originally plan as a sequel to that 2010 film; however, with most of the cast from the original movie not returning; it cause the writers, to do a number of rewrites. Any recurring actors from 'Valentine Day' were rewritten into new roles in new locations, thus making this film, just a spiritual successor of the first film. Without spoiling the movie, too much, while, telling the new story about several couples and singles living in New York City on New Year's Eve; the film with all-star-studded cast felt a little too shallow, sappy and dull for me, even with the overused of passion monologues throughout the film. Though the messages are well meant and everyone's striving to be a good person, there aren't many believable role models. For starters, most of the characters were dealing with first world upper class problems that most people can't related to. The majority of people that lives in New York City, aren't high paying and rich, mostly white record moguls like Josh Duhamel's character, Sam Ahern, Jr. or rock-stars like Jon Bon Jovi's safe and generic character, musician Daniel Jensen who having dating issues. No, it's made, out of a number of blue-blood minorities from all of the five borough with mostly normal jobs, having to deal with paying the bills, and keeping alive. The focus on New York City was way off. It felt manufacturer, as if to act like a tourism brochure, rather than an in depth look of what life is really like in the city. After all, most of the cast is made out of celebs that honestly don't live in New York. Why couldn't they hired, more well-known New Yorkers actors!? Hardly any New York accents in this film. Better yet, focus on writing, well delivered characters that seem like they honestly do live there. You know, characters that seem like they bleed, New York. Another thing, for a movie about the people of New York City, where were the stories of the firefighters, police officers, or even the military. Don't get me wrong, not everything is awful about the characters. I do kinda like the storyline between Kim Doyle (Sarah Jessica Parker) is having trouble with her teenage daughter Hailey (Abigail Breslin) & a dying man, Stan Harris (Robert De Niro) evaluates his life with the help of a nurse named Aimee (Halle Berry). It's something, we can somewhat relate to, and the twist between them with Claire Morgan (Hillary Swank), was somewhat good, but the majority of the rest of the movie is mindless fluff. In my opinion, the movie should had given these stories, a little more real to earth conflicts, rather than having stupid, somewhat disturbing unrealistic conflicts, like two families, the Byrnes, Griffin and Tess (Seth Meyers & Jessica Biel) & the Schwab, James & Grace (Til Schweiger & Sarah Paulsen) trying to give birth, so they can win a lot of money or the stupid rat race to complete last minute, New Year Resolutions as if it's a bucket list with depression, lonely Ingrid Withers (Michelle Pfeiffer), & intrepid bike messenger, Paul Doyle (Zac Efron). It would make this movie, a lot better. Some of the stories, are so awful. I totally forgot about them. Some good examples are the Katherine Heigl's dating storyline and the Ashton Kutcher's elevator scene with Lea Michele. Despite that, most of the acting throughout the film was alright. Nothing too bad to get work up, about. However, nobody really stood out, because how disjointed, the structure was. The movie jumps around from character to character way too much. Sometimes, way too quickly. It really does confusing, whom story goes to whom character. I think, the movie had way too many cameos and not enough main and supporting characters to use as an episodic linking device. Added to that mess, was the large amount of highly visual mistakes. It was really jarring, how badly made, some of the shots were. Some good examples are, how comes, they didn't notice, that the film crew is visual in the train station!? Another, is how come, they didn't notice that the list of New Year resolutions, change between shots!? You would think, this movie, would notice that. Overall: I have to say, 2011's 'New Year's Eve' is like the New Year Baby. At first, it's cute to look at, but stressful and annoying to keep around and watch over. Don't recommended.
Johan Dondokambey
The movie nicely develops several sub stories to fill its duration wisely. A single story would have the movie's time-line stretched so far as two or three days back, which would make the movie feel stupid in comparison to its title. It's also good that the movie tries to use the classic approach on dealing with sub stories, which is connecting them all together into one certain event or place. Now this wouldn't be possible for all, but at least most of the stories ended very well this way. It's very nice to see so many familiar faces in this movie, both senior and junior in the industry. The main roles are executed nicely. Robert DeNiro and Halle Berry did well in their parts, so did Josh Duhamel, Michelle Pfeiffer, Zac Efron, Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl and Abigail Breslin on their parts. The supporting roles get very interesting for having names like Ludicrous, Alyssa Milano and even Tig Scweiber.
