The Good: Nothing I can think of
The Bad: Terrible acting, plot, characters, everything
The Basics: In a series of increasingly inane events, Chris Brander lamely attempts to woo his high school friend, Jamie, with unhilarious results.
I finally figured out why I hate juvenile comedies as much as I do when watching Just Friends; everything in them is manic. There's nothing level, calm, rational or reasonable about them. Everything is over the top, manic, frenetic. I'm not. I can live with movies that include such things, but the idiot teen comedies that come out these days are all manic. It wears thin. Quickly. I was tired of Just Friends within minutes.
Chris Brander, humiliated in high school by being overweight and pining for the girl of his dreams - Jamie -, loses weight, becomes financially successful and begins to womanize. While courting a superstar who is attempting to start a music career, Chris ends up back in New Jersey where he sees an opportunity to reunite with Jamie. Jamie is impressed with the weight Chris has lost, but disenchanted with his new, snobby personality. Jamie is courted as well by Dusty, another previously rejected suitor whose interest in Jamie is solely based in revenge.
This is a dumb movie. It's stupid from beginning to end with pretty much nonstop movement intended to make the audience laugh. There are cars driving off the road, people smacking one another, and the requisite number of people falling down in the attempt of a cheap laugh. It is PG-13, though I can't imagine anyone over thirteen finding anything funny in this. I didn't even smile once while watching this movie. Nothing was laughable, nothing was clever, it was all just dumb. There ought to be a special division of the bomb squad to take copies of this movie out into the desert and safely detonate it. There ought to be a special division of the CIA that tracks down people who buy this disc for their personal collection and takes them out. I can imagine prison inmates who would not sit through the extras on this disc because they would rather return to their cell and look at the wall. That's how dumb, boring and unredeemably bad this movie is.
Anna Faris, who plays starlet Samantha James and is best known for her roles in the Scary Movie series, either has the best agent (who continues to find work for a talentless hack) or ought to fire her agent (if she's a talented actress and continually ends up only in lame, frenetic comedies with terrible scripts that don't utilize any objective standard of talent). Just Friends continues her trend of playing vacuous characters who rely on raw stupidity for laughs and fails even then.
Amy Smart and lead Ryan Reynolds play equally vacuous characters, poorly.
I hope if you read any of this review and were entertained you'll understand that this experience was more enjoyable than the last ninety-three minutes I spent watching this dreck. You only have so much time on this planet; don't waste it on this movie.
That's all.
For other works with Anna Faris, check out my reviews of:
Scary Movie 4
Brokeback Mountain
Waiting. . .
Friends - Season Ten
0/10
For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of them!
© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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