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December 17, 2011

Movie reviews: Mixed bag for light-weight comedy ‘New Year’s Eve’

By Tater Tot Jacksonville Daily Progress

JACKSONVILLE — Editor’s note: A Jacksonville resident has been reviewing movies for friends for several years and has offered to share his thoughts with Daily Progress readers. His reviews come in personal letters to his nicknamed friend, Spud Nut. Our reviewer is Tater Tot, so consequently, the movies get ratings based on potatoes.



Spud Nut,

New Year’s Eve (PG-13, 117 minutes) is a light-weight, date-night, rom-com (romantic comedy) with some drama added for effect. Set in New York, the annual Times Square celebration is one of the multi episodes about people whose lives occasionally intersect.  The most entertaining act occurs between Zac Ephraim and Michelle Pfeiffer as he helps fulfill her new year’s resolutions (kind of like The Bucket List caper).  Sexy Sofia Vergara steals all of her scenes as the Latina hot tamale, sous chef.  Katherine Heigl plies her patented role as the jilted girlfriend to whom Jon Bon Jovi must make amends.  Hilary Swank, Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher, Josh Duhamel, Jessica Biel, Abigail Breslin, Halle Berry, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ludacris, Common, and several other familiar faces fill the screen, collecting easy paychecks in a story that has breadth, but no depth.  If you’ll excuse some cheesy sentiments now and then, you can enjoy this movie almost two potatoes worth.

Tater Tot

•••

(The other Potato Head movie fan has also reviewed New year's Eve with his buddy Tater tot)

 

 Tater Tot,

New Year’s Eve proved to be less interesting than the teasers would have us expect.  You wonder, how could this flick go wrong?  I mean, it has an amazingly large cast of luminaries in the feature roles, plus cameos by major stars.   I think in the end, it stretched our concentration too thin.  Too many stories, maybe.  I’m not sure.  It was great to see Abigail Breslin return to the big screen.  Zac Efron was the star of the show for me and he wasn’t on the screen nearly enough.  You are right, he and Michelle Pfeiffer have the most interesting of the several stories in this outing.  One aspect of this flick is that they work to tone down the glamour of some of Hollywood’s sexiest ladies.  Pfeiffer is dowdy, middle aged and depressed.  Now, if they can make Halle Barry look plain, they are working hard.  Even the fire of Sofia Vergara is quenched, at least a little.  Anyway, this should have been a more entertaining movie.

I’d say it was worth the price of admission, but just barely.

See you at the concession stand,

Spud Nut

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