This movie really made me nostalgic for those '80s John Hughes pictures like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" or similar knockoffs like "Adventures in Babysitting" where a group of teens are in the big city (Chicago via Toronto) and have all sorts of zany adventures where they run up against funny characters like snooty maitre d's, joyriding parking attendants, and hook-handed tow truck drivers. The main objective was for the kids to have the time of their lives and get back to the burbs before their parents to avoid being grounded. In the process they learned some life lessons and such too.
"Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist" lacks the key ingredient of those movies: the fun. There's nothing fun about this movie. There's plenty of vulgarity with drinking, puking, sex on a couch, and gay jokes, but it was all pretty dull. Other than the Christmas pageant at a gay night club there's nothing wacky or zany to be had in this movie, just a couple of gross-out moments involving throwing up and retrieving gum from a bus terminal toilet.
The rest of the movie is the dull, cliche mating dance of Nick and Nora. Nick got dumped by Triss and is pining over her when he meets Nora at a nightclub. (Apparently it's incredibly easy for 17/18-year olds to get into clubs and be served alcohol in New York City; never once do they even get carded!) Nora asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend so she doesn't look like a total loser. Then later, she enlists his help in his rusty yellow Yugo that people inexplicably mistake for a cab, to find her drunken friend. And at the same time they'd like to find the afterhours club where a hot band called Where's Fluffy is playing.
Like those '80s movies we already know how this is going to end more or less. But at least those movies had some fun with the comic misadventures, instead of going from one nightclub to another to whine and argue about their relationships. I could pretty much say the same about "Superbad" (which also starred Michael Cera) in that other than the McLovin parts the rest of the movie was bored the crap out of me. The situations in both are stale and predictable, only instead of house parties as in "Superbad", "Nick and Nora" subs NYC night clubs. In the end it made me glad the movie was only 90 minutes because I'd hate to have spent any more time on it.
(I miss you, John Hughes, wherever you are!)
My score: 2 stars
Metacritic score: 64/100
No comments:
Post a Comment