Review of New Year's Eve (2011) by Mloy X — 11 Sep 2013

Claire Morgan (Hilary Swank): And as you all can see, the ball has stopped half way to its perch. it's suspended there to remind us before we pop the champagne and celebrate the new year, to stop, and reflect on the year that has gone by, to remember both our triumphs and our missteps, our promises made and broken, the times we opened ourselves up to great adventures... or closed ourselves down for fear of getting hurt, because that's what new year's all about , getting another chance, a chance to forgive. to do better, to do more,to give more, to love more, and to stop worrying about what if... and start embracing.

What will be.

In my defense, it was on t.v., I was awake and too lazy to turn the channel. It was alright, but could have been so much better especially with the plethora of A-listers they had on the roster: Deniro, Pfeiffer, Swank. Unfortunately, it tried so hard to be sentimental but the need to emotionally connect was just so forced on the audience, that it just felt completely disingenuous. The movie was just too choppy and convoluted, and suffered from the many intertwining (and might I add poorly executed) storylines. Not enough time was given to each character's development, so as an audience, I really didn't care for most of the character's plight. Although, there were a few good storylines: as short as Halle Berry's was, it was probably the best storyline in the whole film, sweet and pretty poignant. Michelle Pfieffer & Zac Efron's bucket-list themed tale was kind of cute and pretty relatable, even Ashton Kutcher/Lea Michele's mostly insignificant story arc was tolerably good. Jessica Biel & Seth Meyer's portion of the film was predictable and a bit cliche but atleast it was a fun and welcomed diversion. This movie flopped largely because Katherine Heigl and Jon Bon Jovi had no chemistry and their story was laughable at best, it could have been deleted altogether and would have benefited the film immensely (I fast-forwarded through their scenes, it was such a bore). Josh Duhamel was okay but was I the only one who was disappointed when the build-up for his dream girl turns out to be ****************************SPOILER ALERT**************** Sara Jessica Parker? Seriously. I don't get it. And lastly, Hilary Swank and Robert Deniro-- I should have connected with this one the most (having gone through the same experiences) but it all just rang false and fake to me, it was almost as bad having to sit through it as having to watch Bon-Heigl's vomit-inducing performance. Overall, the film was poorly executed and if you want to see a holiday-centric film with multiple storylines that's done quite well, I suggest just watch "Love Actually". Ten times....maybe even, a hundred times better film.