Film Review: New Year's Eve

New Year’s Eve. Rated M (infrequent coarse language). 118 minutes. Directed by Garry Marshall. Screenplay by Katherine Fugate.

There are some fantastic movies about New Year’s Eve and all its attendant, high-stakes emotional drama. The first one that springs to mind is The Poseidon Adventure (1972, pictured), in which a glittering cast of Hollywood A-listers find themselves fighting for survival when the majestic SS Poseidon is capsized by a freak wave right on the stroke of midnight.

And then there’s New Year’s Eve.

Just as he did with Valentine’s Day, Mr Marshall (Pretty Woman, The Princess Diaries, Beaches) lines up the ducks and shoots them in this trite, formulaic and laugh-less affair. At its worst – which is most of the time – it’s the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry. At its best – largely due to engaging turns from Zac Efron (as a delivery boy) and an unrecognisable Michelle Pfeiffer (as an eccentric woman with a bucket list) – New Year’s Eve only ever threatens to sparkle and sing.

Ms Fugate’s (Valentine’s Day) bloated screenplay contains fleeting whispers of originality, while mostly being bogged-down in one tedious ‘festive season’ cliché after another as a bunch of Hollywood’s finest email in performances of incomprehensibly one-dimensional dullness.

There’s the terminally-ill Stan (Robert De Niro), who may not live to see in the new year. There’s the cynical Randy (Ashton Kutcher) who gets stuck in a lift with songbird Elise (Lea Michele). Then there’s Claire (Hilary Swank) whose job is to make sure that New York City’s famous Times Square ball drops. Then there’s neurotic mom Kim (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Ms Parker’s real-life husband Matthew Broderick (who gives the appearance of having dropped in to film his cameo while on the way to the 7/11). And on and on it goes.

Not only is New Year’s Eve a monumental waste of talent and time, its opportunistic, manipulative and cynical exploitation of some grand themes (the Iraq war, terminal illness, loneliness and despair at this time of year, and so on) borders on offensive. Just as well there’s some unintentionally bizarre curiosities to distract us all from the terminal boredom – of which watching Jon Bon Jovi trying to act is the absolute winner.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.