NEW YEAR'S EVE DVD (2011)

SYNOPSIS: From director Garry Marshall comes an all-star ensemble romantic comedy. New Year's Eve celebrates love, hope, forgiveness, second chances and fresh starts, in intertwining stories told amidst the pulse and promise of New York City.

MOVIE REVIEW:

He gave the world a “Pretty Woman”back in 1990 and unleashed a “Runaway Bride” nine years later. 78 year old Garry Marshall will most likely be remembered for the two Julia Roberts’ romantic comedies. But with the success of “Valentine’s Day”, it has proven there are still lots of mileage left in the old dog. Expectedly, here comes the unofficial sequel, ensemble romcom called “New Year’s Eve”.   

Viewers who have watched “Valentine’s Day” will know the star-studded casting and formulaic plotting and yes almost everything is port over to “New Year’s Eve” including Aston Kutcher. The romcom vignettes smell so ‘Hollywood’ and other than spending two hours star gazing and there’s nothing remotely interesting about counting down on New Year’s Eve with a bunch of predictable characters.

For a start, Kutcher plays Randy, a guy who doesn’t believe in celebrating New Year’s Eve after being ditched by his girlfriend. But hey, guess what he found? Love in the form of an aspiring singer when they both got stuck in a lift. Boring. Jon Bon Jovi turns up as a singer, Jensen (yes that Bon Jovi without his band members) who pinned for his ex-girlfriend, Laura (Katherine Heigl) when they happened to meet again at a ball. Boring X Boring. It doesn’t stop here and there’s one silly vignette involving two couples fighting for a special bonus in a hospital where the winner is the first child who is born on New Year’s Day. Boring X Boring X Boring.

To be fair, there are some bright moments in this otherwise plain affair. A weird pairup between Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Efron provides some mild entertainment as Efron’s courier boy character helps Pfeiffer complete her New Year’s resolutions before the clock strikes midnight. Robert De Niro playing a man in the final stage of cancer whose only wish to see the ball drop in Times Square supplies the heartwarming portion of this chicken soup production.

Everyone seems to have some unfulfilled wishes, desires in this Marshall directed and Katherine Fugate’s written story. I don’t even wish to delve into the other many characters played by Sarah Jessica Parker, Hilary Swank, Halle Berry, Josh Duhamel, Ludacris, Abigail Breslin and many more in case I bored you. The production on the whole is handsome enough, it’s the kind of movie that is best watched with a whole bunch of people equipped with crates of beer, wine, chips and snacks going around. The insane chattering will definitely drowned out the dreariness of “New Year’s Eve” making it the perfect movie to play in the background.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Listening to Garry Marshall’s commentary is like listening to your grandfather’s telling you bedtime stories. It’s soothing and you learnt a lot about the making of the movie. If you are a fan, you shouldn’t miss grandpa’s Audio Commentary Track. An 11 minutes Gag Reel round up the features.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Images and detail looks good on the DVD transfer. The movie’s sound design is nothing whelming though dialogue is as clear as you can get.

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee