« 89.3 - the current: Better for listeners, but bad for independent radio? | Main | Sin City revels in grit and gore »
April 12, 2005
Guess who came to dinner. Guess who wasn’t impressed.
The hardest part of liking movies you know are bad is trying to find anything that makes them redeemable.
Luckily, Guess Who isn’t one of those movies. While I admit that this was enjoyable fluff (certainly much more than Ice Cube’s Are We There Yet), it was always a struggle to remember that I wasn’t expecting to see a good movie.
So what went wrong? Surprisingly, not much as would be expected from a bad romantic comedy, though nothing felt right. Ashton Kutcher, as Simon, played his role surprisingly well for someone who has typecast himself as an idiot, and Bernie Mac as Percy Jones also put in a good performance. That’s it.
“What about the other characters?” an observant reader might ask, and to that question, which I also asked myself time and time again, I would respond with this: What other characters?
Theresa (Zoe Saldana) had little to say or do. Her one big scene involved her reacting with ecstasy at the thought of giving Simon (Ashton Kutcher) an adorable baby. Yeah, the look on your face is probably close to the one I had. She was never able to assert herself, and her sudden outburst was an obvious ploy to propel the lame little lifeboat of a plot forward. I guess there must have been other characters but I don’t really remember them.
Another disappointment, besides the fact that I vowed to not view this movie as anything but cotton-candy fluff, was the issue of racism that wasn’t pushed. While the movie had an amazing potential to smother with piety, it instead opted to make jokes that perpetuated stereotypes.
To save anyone reading this both eight dollars and 97 minutes, here’s the spoiler: Simon and Theresa stay together, more in love than before. Simon and Percy also share an awkward wedding rehearsal dance during the prerequisite bonding moment, there are another two-and-a-half dance sequences, a song with singing waiters, and the “classic kiss,” which received thunderous applause (from the characters, not the audience). Well, I was shocked.
And then the movie ends. All other plot conflicts are left completely unresolved. Even the reason for Simon quitting his job is barely explained, but who cares? He and Theresa are together and happy and that’s all that matters. Even thinking about Percy’s extreme love of NASCAR and Jeff Gordon isn’t even worth the mental stress.
So come Friday night, why not go out and rent 10 Things I Hate About You instead? It may be another bad movie, but I guess I have a soft spot for Heath Ledger.
Posted by msveum at April 12, 2005 02:27 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)