As I've mentioned in my previous entry, I was planning to go for a rom-com today, 'A Lot Like Love' cos' I figure that 'The Longest Yard' would be funner to see with other people.
However, when I reached the cinema, 'The Longest Yard' was just about to start while 'A Lot Like Love' had started for ten minutes, so I went for the former. After finishing it, I figured that 'Bah, I can just sneak into 'A Lot Like Love' without anyone noticing and save myself the $6.50'... and that's what I did. Hah, I think I might start doing this in the future, for the sake of ahem, saving more money.
So, here are my reviews for the two films.
THE LONGEST YARD
Adam Sandler's latest film. I always felt that Adam Sandler's films are pretty solid, despite the mauling he usually gets from critics (Little Nicky is the only Adam Sandler flick I haven't seen though), and '50 First Dates' is a romantic comedy I enjoyed immensely last year (I think it was in my top ten of 2004). And Chris Rock's in it too! With this comedic duo, things would be really funny, right?
To my surprise, this is a more serious film than I've originally expected. Yeah, there are some funny scenes, but overall, this is not a laughfest, especially when a major character actually dies in the film. Whoa.
'The Longest Yard' is about a former NFL star (Sandler) who got thrown into jail after wrecking his girlfriend's car, and when in prison, he has to assemble a team to play against the guards in a game where they were 'fixed' to lose. So it's another one of those generic underdog films where you get to see a bunch of likable misfits facing impossible odds to achieve glory... well, I happen to be a sucker for such films, so yeah, I enjoyed it.
There are cameo roles of WWE wrestlers like Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kevin Nash (both as the evil guards), and Goldberg (as a player in Sandler's team, his role in the movie is way more likable than his wrestling persona). And the wrestlers, technically being 'actors' for years, did pretty well in the film. Nash turned out to be really, really funny. Guy seems to have acting skills not seen during his days as a wrestler in WCW and WWE. Ah man, I would've liked seeing Austin and Goldberg's characters facing off in the film, unfortunately, that didn't happen cos' Austin's character seemed to focus more on tormenting Nelly (guy was okay in his role too).
So yeah, if you're into Adam Sandler films and underdog type films, go ahead and check this out. Won't really waste your time. It's entertaining, just don't expect anything more than this.
Now, for the second film...
A LOT LIKE LOVE
This romantic comedy stars Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet as the protagonists, Oliver and Emily, and follows their relationship in a span of 7 years where they spend most of the time navigating between the line of friendship and romance. There are numerous chance encounter and abrupt separation throughout the film.
All in all, despite its attempt to be more mature and serious than most of its peers, it's still a pretty unremarkable romantic comedy that failed to grip me that much emotionally, but one thing it succeed was to make me relate to Ashton Kutcher's character. An idealistic young man who chose to concentrate on establishing a career and put aside his desire to get romantically-involved. That's pretty much the story of my life right now.
'A Lot Like Love' is a rather forgettable film (I can't remember a single line from the film now, even though I've just finished seeing it few hours ago) with a weak script, but Ashton Kutcher deserves more credit for this. (in my opinion, the guy has more range than what Orlando Bloom is showing thus far) Ditto with Amanda Peet. I guess both are decent actors, just that they were given very boring and pointless characters to deal with. I don't really recommend this unless you are desperate for some romantic comedy, even so, I think Ashton's earlier feature this year 'Guess Who?' is more entertaining than this one.
