Tuesday, May 17, 2011

BETTER THAN I EXPECTED

No Strings Attached was surprisingly well written which kept it quite watchable.  All they really did was flip-flop the standard rom-com conventions (she's the one with committment fears and he's the one who wants to snuggle) but Portman and Kutcher had very good chemistry and the colorful supporting cast hit some funny notes.  There's some solid, bawdy, R-rated sex humor that punched things up, but overall, the movie has to be seen as a major success for its director, Ivan Reitman, who has been responsible for one piece of shit after another for the last 15 years (Junior, Father's Day, Six Days, Seven Nights, Evolution, My Super Ex-Girlfriend -- it's a fucking miracle that he got another movie ater that string of disasters!)  Seriously -- the last great comedy Reitman directed was Dave; this is a guy who has been living off his 80's lore for quite some time now.  No Strings Attached isn't great -- hardly -- it's more like decent or above average.  But it's better than total shit.  Which is a step in the right direction.  It's so funny to see Portman go on a popcorn movie binge (Thor, No Strings, Your Highness) atfer her riveting performance in Black Swan; she can do anything it seems.  Good movie for a rainy day.

1 comment:

Joel said...

Definitely a huge surprise, one of the better ones this year. Sweet, surprisingly mature screenplay.