 The
Flick Chick
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.com
judyt@theflickchicks.com
kreatia@aol.com
 
“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.
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