Normally, a movie review sets out its stall with a little preamble, then a quick run through the basic plot, then a critique of perhaps the movie’s main selling points, before rounding things up in a tidy summary – the part most people skip to. Doubly so if there’s a star rating at the end.
That’s what I hate about movie reviews. They always stick to a certain formula, even if they try and pepper it up with a light smattering of casual swearing and a few references to popular culture that you can relate to because YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT THING THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT SO YOU MUST BE JUST LIKE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE / MILA KUNIS, most likely because someone linked you to its YouTube video on your Facebook profile. Twitter. X-Factor. iPad.
Not this review, though. This review is well aware of the above trappings of other movie reviews, and as such, none of that bunkum will occur whilst discussing Friends With Benefits, a new romantic comedy that’s achingly aware of the hokiness of other romantic comedies, and achingly keen to let you know about it. Two recently-single yuppie-types (what do we call yuppies now, anyway? App-ies? Tossers?) hook up for sex, and then… Y’know. Stuff happens. You already saw it all in that other movie earlier this year. Y’know – No Strings Attached? You saw it, because Natalie Portman’s in it and you found her hot in Black Swan. Did you see the movie Black Swan? Me too. We’re pretty alike. Let’s hang out.
Except, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal (you know those guys? It’s okay if you don’t. They’re pretty old. Like The Flinstones! Remember them?) already taught us that guys and girls can’t just be friends – especially if their friendly greeting to one another is a sexy(two)backed beast. And if we learned anything from all those romantic comedies that Friends With Benefits keeps bitching about, it’s that sooner or later the couple who underwent a ridiculous meet-cute early on are just destined to end up together. Not in this movie, though – Friends With Benefits is way too ahead of the curve and self aware to pull that kind of OH WAIT NO THAT TOTALLY HAPPENS ANYWAY.
So yeah. Friends With Benefits. It’s good for a few laughs and the leads are attractive and talented enough to carry it, but as this review is totally not like all the other reviews that came before it, how about we just play some Nintendo Wii instead? You know Nintendo Wii too? Excellent.
(Three stars.)

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