Judy Thorburn's Movie Reviews
Just Friends
- Details
- Category: Judy Thorburn
- Published on 24 November 2008
- Written by Judy Thorburn
Las Vegas Tribune - http://www.lasvegastribune.com
Las Vegas Round The Clock - http://www.lasvegasroundheclock.com
The Women Film Critics Circle - http://www.wfcc.wordpress.comThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">
kreatia@This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
“JUST FRIENDS” – IS JUST AWFUL
I’ll go straight to the point. Just Friends is one of the worst movies of the year, on par with the equally as bad cinematic drivel, Dukes of Hazzard. Just Friends is supposed to be a riotous romantic comedy. But it lacks romance, is unfunny, mean-spirited and a total waste of time.
Someone in Hollywood is pushing the lead, Ryan Reynolds, an actor that doesn’t offer any appeal, as far as I am concerned. I first saw him on TV in a stupid comedy series called Two Guys and a Girl. I didn’t like him then and he hasn’t done anything to change my mind. Yet, unbeknownst to me as to why, Reynolds career is on the upswing with appearances in movies such as Blade: Trinity and The Amityville Horror. I wonder if an unimpressive turn in this terrible film will slow down his momentum. After his other recent flop Waiting and now this, it certainly could mean a stop to Reynold’s meteoric rise on the big screen.
Just Friends starts off in 1995 with Reynolds wearing a fat suit, as Chris, an overweight guy who everyone except an attractive blonde named Jamie (Amy Smart, The Butterfly Effect), pokes fun at in his New Jersey high school. Chris harbors a crush on Jamie, but she considers their relationship nothing more than, you guessed it, just friends (meaning we will never have sex), something that causes him great frustration. Things come to a head when a humiliating experience at his post graduation party sends Chris packing and moving to L.A.
Fast-forward ten years to present day. In the intervening years Chris managed to lose a ton of weight and is now a slimmed down, cocky, ladies man and a hotshot Hollywood record executive. But, even with girls coming at him from all directions, he still can’t get Jamie out of his mind. So when an assignment to accompany pop star Samantha James (Ana Faris) to Paris for the Christmas holidays turns into his plane making an emergency landing near Chris’s New Jersey hometown, a return visit to his mom (Julie Haggerty, the ditsy stewardess of those old “Airplane” movies) and younger brother, Mike (Chistopher Marquette, TV’s Joan of Arcadia) leads to a reunion with old friends and, no surprise, Jamie, the girl of his dreams.
The question is- would a physically transformed Chris be able to light a flame in the heart of the woman who rejected him back in high school? Would his new attitude be a turn off or will he be able to revert to the old likeable guy Jamie once called her best friend? Like we don’t know how this is going to end, duh! But, of course the typical obstacles are set in motion before reaching the predictable conclusion.
Competition for Jamie comes in the form of Dusty Dinkelman (Chris Klein) a former stuttering pimple faced, loser back in high school turned hunky paramedic who is set on winning Jamie by means of manipulation and lies. And, of course, there is the self-absorbed, clueless pop star that is hot for Chris and wants him all for herself. While Chris is off wooing Jamie, Samantha is left with Chris’s younger brother Mike, a fan who has posters of the star in his bedroom and is eager to accommodate.
Just Friends is one of those comedies that depends on a series of dumb slapstick scenes, many with people getting injured, and silly if not ridiculous, or offensive sight gags. I could hardly bear watching the crude interactions with Chris and his abusive, annoying brother that were meant to be funny, but only got an ugh reaction from me and most of the audience at my screening. Also, how many more times is the stunt with Christmas lights and decorations exploding and/or being torn from a house going to be recycled? Been there, done that in both Meet the Parents and last year’s dreadful Xmas With The Kranks. It wasn’t all that funny then and it fails to create any giggles here.
Somewhere in writer Adam Davis’s script is the basis of what could have been a sweet, funny romantic tale. Instead what evolves is a badly written story about a guy who we don’t care the slightest about, nor any of the one-dimensional people in his world. Reynolds does a lot of mugging and has zero chemistry with Smart, who has little dialogue, and not much to do but look pretty. The only real laughs come from scene stealing Ana Faris, lampooning a mix of Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton into her character of Sam, a wild and crazy minimally talented singer, who is full of herself. Other than Faris, the film has zero watchability.
Do yourself a favor and just pass on Just Friends. Let me save you from a dreadful experience. This film has loser written all over it.