This is an anthology film - a bewildering number of story threads hover around the Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop at the end of 2011. These include a man dying of cancer and his nurse, a rock singer and a caterer, two people stuck in a lift, a lovesick teen, the woman in charge of the ball drop, and assorted others. Some of these stories interlink, some don't.
This film, from the same production team which came up with St Valentine's Day, has a huge high profile cast, and has garnered some highly dodgy reviews. The points made in those reviews are all valid, but I didn't think this movie was as bad as all that (although, to be fair, the bad bits really stink).
Let me start by saying that this is yet another instance of a film being mis-marketed as a comedy. It is not. There is virtually nothing in it to laugh it (it more or less starts with Michelle Pfeiffer performing the worst pratfall in the history of movies). Apart from the odd line which raises a smile and Sofia Vergara doing a hugely exaggerated and possibly offensive stereotyped latina schtick which is sometimes amusing, this film simply isn't funny.
Some of the story threads have enough to please, however, particularly when they manage to contrive some emotion and stay out of mawkishness (Halle Berry's nurse and Abigail Breslin's teen come off best here). And the threads are intercut in short enough segments that none of them outstays their welcome to any great extent.
Now let's look at the bad. This must surely start with Hilary Swank's humourless and pointless ball-dropping supremo, to be followed by Michelle Pfeiffer's dreadfully misconceived repressed wish fulfilment spinster. The horrible thread with the competing birth couples (all of whom were completely hateful until a late redemption) was only just matched by the improbability of Ashton Kutcher's louche bah-humbug, er, person (for we never really found out anything else about him) being shown the value of New Year's Eve by being trapped in a lift with someone of a more hopeful disposition. And the resolution of Sarah Jessica Parker's storyline was one which I found not so much improbable as ludicrous.
So my verdict is not good, but passes the time if there is nothing else available.
Incidentally, the most entertaining element of the film are the outtakes which come with the closing credits.
This film, from the same production team which came up with St Valentine's Day, has a huge high profile cast, and has garnered some highly dodgy reviews. The points made in those reviews are all valid, but I didn't think this movie was as bad as all that (although, to be fair, the bad bits really stink).
Let me start by saying that this is yet another instance of a film being mis-marketed as a comedy. It is not. There is virtually nothing in it to laugh it (it more or less starts with Michelle Pfeiffer performing the worst pratfall in the history of movies). Apart from the odd line which raises a smile and Sofia Vergara doing a hugely exaggerated and possibly offensive stereotyped latina schtick which is sometimes amusing, this film simply isn't funny.
Some of the story threads have enough to please, however, particularly when they manage to contrive some emotion and stay out of mawkishness (Halle Berry's nurse and Abigail Breslin's teen come off best here). And the threads are intercut in short enough segments that none of them outstays their welcome to any great extent.
Now let's look at the bad. This must surely start with Hilary Swank's humourless and pointless ball-dropping supremo, to be followed by Michelle Pfeiffer's dreadfully misconceived repressed wish fulfilment spinster. The horrible thread with the competing birth couples (all of whom were completely hateful until a late redemption) was only just matched by the improbability of Ashton Kutcher's louche bah-humbug, er, person (for we never really found out anything else about him) being shown the value of New Year's Eve by being trapped in a lift with someone of a more hopeful disposition. And the resolution of Sarah Jessica Parker's storyline was one which I found not so much improbable as ludicrous.
So my verdict is not good, but passes the time if there is nothing else available.
Incidentally, the most entertaining element of the film are the outtakes which come with the closing credits.