How To Be Single **
The story seems to rely on its dominant characters to pull us through the flatter moments, as Johnson’s casting in the lead is the film’s biggest gamble – and one that doesn’t quite come off.
Category: Romcom
They Came Together **
This is a film for all those cutesy New York rom-com haters – especially those whose idea of watching You’ve Got Mail (starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks) is like someone running fingernails down a blackboard. Ironically, in spoofing Hollywood’s treaclely genre, you have to go through all the exact same clichés again that cause …
The Five-Year Engagement **
Where do you go after showing all your naked glory in Forgetting Sarah Marshall? For Jason Segel, fresh from The Muppets, you head back to familiar Apatow territory to play the big, misunderstood softie in need of some good lovin’. Although The Five-Year Engagement isn’t as clichéd as some rom-coms, it still suffers from some …
The Lucky One ***
Penned by the author who gave us the equally schmaltzy Dear John, The Last Song and The Notebook, The Lucky One is another pubescent girl’s wet dream, starring former Disney poster boy Zac Efron no doubt. It’s the kind of predictable romance-by-the-numbers that young girls can swoon over and mature females – who ought no …
Delicacy ***
Audrey Tautou has come a long way since her touching, doe-eyed international debut in Amelie. The actress is typecast in such feisty, cutesy roles that it’s hard to determine whether she’s good or just a natural charmer – a bit of both perhaps. In debut directors David Foenkinos and Stéphane Foenkinos’ new romance, Delicacy, we …
This Means War ****
This week’s ‘date movie’, director McG’s This Means War, is wrapped in an action blanket from the start for romcom lovers weary of lovelorn, sugary angst from the start. Thankfully, it doesn’t start in an idyllic Manhattan suburb either. It comes crashing into fun focus, James Bond style, in the oddly intriguing pairing of Tom …
New Year’s Eve *
You have to worry when a film’s musical medley finale is far more entertaining than what you’ve just sat through. Another snag for the filmmakers of the equally disappointing Valentine’s Day last year is their biggest star, Robert De Niro, is woefully miscast in the sombre role, when his true comedic talent is apparent in …
Midnight In Paris ****
SPOILER: As a Brit watching Woody Allen’s latest European muse, the first thing that springs to mind is Only Fools’ Nicholas Lyndhurst’s time-travelling sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart about an accidental time traveller who discovers a time portal, allowing him to travel between the London of the 1990s and the same area during the Second World War. …
What’s Your Number? *
It’s the magic number some of us like to keep secret and others like to brag about, and it’s the subject of Anna Faris’ new rom-com What’s Your Number? that she also exec produces. Multi-tasking seems to be the key here, as Faris who stars in the film has to do much of the leg …