2011 Fizzles Out with Yet Another Valentine's....'New Year's Eve'

Valentine's Day isn't the only holiday that Hollywood can cash in on for a quick ensemble film. 

Chick flicks have always been a dime a dozen – sappy, unreal easily fixable little worlds with a perfect little ending topped off with some pretty bow. Sometimes one linear sappy story is way more than one can handle at any given moment. Then Garry Marshall gave us Valentine’s Day, where it wasn’t just one story of love, but somehow a whole bunch intermixed with one another and better yet, throwing in pop celebrities and product placement for the sake of filling up two hours. 

It’s not over; not by a long shot. Swap out boxes of chocolates and dozen roses for champagne and annoying party favors to celebrate another year gone by and countdown another three hundred odd days until that infamous Mayan prediction. Like Marshall’s previous ensemble film, New Year’s Eve follows countless storylines in the Big Apple, leading up the final moments of the year.

From the start, New Year’s Eve is too overblown in size with at the very minimum eight subplots going on all at the same time. Within a few minutes, we’re introduced to all these different characters dealing with the coming New Year and we just might get back to them….eventually. For a film with multiple subplots, you’d think it’d be confusing, but it’s far from that being more frustrated when you’ll feel more towards certain stories than others. Some of the stories, like being the first to give birth in the new year, are short single jokes that become predictable and repetitive. Others like Zac Efron fulfilling Michelle Pfeiffer’s resolutions, though sentimental and also repetitive are slightly better.

Despite nearly a very long two hours, there isn’t enough time to care about at least half of the subplots and ponders the fact why some of these actors bothered with this movie outside of a quick payday. Ludacris serves no purpose in this movie. Neither does Halle Berry. By tightening the film and ridding the film of excess fat, maybe then could audiences really get into the characters. There’s just no arc for only a few minutes of screen time. Luckily, Marshall doesn’t thread as sappy as Valentine’s Day storylines, but there are many moments of cheese to endure. Marshall is a capable director with decades of experience with the rom-com, directing Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and The Princess Diaries. Those films didn’t feel like some cash grab. This does.

Even though New Year’s Eve does have some touching moments interspersed between the many stories, it seems to be a two hour moving billboard for Times Square and practically any product plastered within a mile radius. Between the endless sea of Nivea blue, the massive Sherlock Holmes 2 poster and Broadway banners, this is a marketing field day. There are much needed breaks away from the consistent commercial, particularly with Josh Duhamel’s mini road trip. But when those Time Square scenes take center stage, the painful product placement is unavoidable.

With its many flaws aside, it’s actually a relief to see many of A and B-list actors not trying to one-up each other. Naturally, you’d expect Katherine Heigl or Hilary Swank or Halle Berry to steal the spotlight, but Marshall divides it up where no one can claim headlining status in this ensemble. But some just get no time whatsoever.

New Year’s Eve may be geared more towards the female demographic, but guys will certainly be able to endure much better than Marshall’s previous love-fest. And once you pull back all the sappiness from every corner of the film, you’re ready to welcome a brand new year and put the last behind. Bring on the next of the ensemble films, St. Patrick’s Day or April Fool’s Day or maybe just not yet.       

GRADE: C (5/10)
This review is also available on Blu-Ray.com