film review: new year’s eve
From the makers of Valentine’s Day comes New Year’s Eve, another movie with interconnected storylines that are all ultimately joined by the time of year that they occur. Once again, the film is overflowing with celebrities. Sarah Jessica Parker, Ashton Kutcher, Jon Bon Jovi and Halle Berry are just a few of the big names to feature.
Set in New York, the stories focus on Times Square, a major record label party and a hospital. Each character is hoping to gain something from the one night in the year that offers a fresh start – except for Randy (Kutcher), who has given up entirely on the whole concept and plans to spend the night inside in his pyjamas.
Randy meets Elise (Glee’s Lea Michele) when they are stuck in a lift together, and he tells her that New Year’s Eve is an inevitable let down. The same could be said for this movie. With all of the popular and well-loved actors that feature, it should be amazing, but instead it falls short in the same way that Valentine’s Day did.
The humour is mostly cheap and lacks originality, and the storylines are either extremely clichéd or fail to seem believable. For example, the recently unemployed Ingrid Withers (Michelle Pfieffer) asking her former delivery boy Paul (Zac Efron) to fulfill her New Year’s resolutions by midnight is a cute idea, but the chemistry between the two just doesn’t seem real.
That said, the most enjoyable storyline is also the most clichéd, being the lift scenes between Randy and Elise. Kutcher has the only funny lines in the movie, which he pulls off in his obvious yet effective style, and Michele’s voice is a highlight as always. Kutcher’s story was also the redeeming feature of Valentine’s Day, which perhaps says more about the actor than the plots themselves. There are some fun moments elsewhere in the movie, and it’s almost worth seeing just to play spot the celebrity. Just don’t expect too much!
