A Lot Like Love
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C- Film: C-
A Lot Like Love (2005) is a lot like every
other bad boy/girl film we have suffered through since the rise of the mall
movie in the 1980s. Ashton Kutcher has
a knack for picking bad scripts and except for the recent Guess Who? the
same year, continues to bat a thousand in the wrong direction. The female of interest is Amanda Peet,
showing up at her burned-out worst. The
film thinks it is cute, but as you watch, you hope for a deadly tragedy or
anything else to stop the madness.
Unfortunately, it goes on for 107 inane minutes.
Kutcher is a TV star who got lucky, the politically safe
successor to the failed Freddie Prinze, Jr., when it came to the airhead
Ken-doll mantle with maybe a bit more common sense. The press spinners have built him up in a brainwashing way to get
thousands of people who never met him to say, “he’s such a nice guy!” Such psychosis is a poor substitute for a
good script or taking a stand on anything, especially at this time in our
lives. Predictably, the critics
despised the film (unanimously correct for a change) and it promptly
bombed. The DVD is going to try and
make up for it, but if it were not for Guess Who?, Kutcher could have
considered his career in deep trouble.
For Peet, it is beyond help unless she takes a real risk before its too
late.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is
disappointing for a recent film, with softness and poor video black
throughout. Did cinematographer John De
Boorman, B.S.C., intend for this film to look this weak? I doubt it, as if it mattered. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is loaded with
loud sounds and the worst choice and placement of hit records we have seen in
years! Alex Worman’s score is
forgettable and Kutcher’s mockery of the always-lame Bon Jovi proved so lame,
that Jon Bon Jovi himself would not even return Kutcher’s phone calls on how to
do the song. That speaks volumes of the
bankruptcy of this film. Extras include
a pointless audio commentary that director Nigel Coel and two producers
actually has the guts to record, deleted scenes, a blooper reel and (yes) a
music video. Maybe they could have just
done a concert film. Then Bon Jovi
could have shown up and you would have known to avoid this mess.
- Nicholas Sheffo
