The Reason People Don't Like Teenagers: Just My Luck Embodies The Worst In Entertainment

The Good: You've got me, it ends?
The Bad: Plot is predictable, Characters, Acting, Soundtrack, Pretty much everything
The Basics: With terrible acting, poor role models/behaviors exhibited and an insipid teen soundtrack, Just My Luck is a loser for all audiences.


Every now and then, I walk right into my favorite library, browse along the DVDs and stop at the first title I do not recognize and I get that movie out. Generally, it takes a lot for me to find something by this method these days. Today, I was in luck and I found a movie I had not heard of that was new, so I got it out and watched it. It was called Just My Luck, features Lindsay Lohan and it makes me wonder if everyone remotely associated with this movie has had their career utterly destroyed. If not, they ought to be.

Ashley lives in Manhattan in a fabulous apartment, does not believe in luck, yet she is always able to catch a cab, rain clouds clear up when she walks outside and the new cute guy she meets (who is, of course, fabulously rich) asks her out and she gets the corporate credit card to plan a fabulous party for the richest music mogul around. Across town, Jake Hardin has terrible luck: his pants tear, he finds a five dollar bill covered in dog poop and his quest to get a c.d. to Damon Phillips, the music mogul, lands him in jail. Jake makes his way into the fabulous party, kisses Ashley and their luck reverses, allowing Jake to become successful representing his band and sending Ashley into a chaotic life that involves losing everything she had.

My first problem with this movie was I could not figure out who the intended audience is. The movie is PG-13, but characters mention erotic massage, celebrate with champagne and work at jobs that require at least a rudimentary college education. As an adult, the movie is lightyears too stupid for me. The average joke involves falling down, vomiting when one is nervous or getting punched in the face by the butch woman in your jail cell. So, it's clearly not intended for an adult audience (I think we need a new rating system from the MPAA which will indicate the level to which a movie will insult the intelligence of an adult), but it has some dialogue that is apparently pushing it above the age 13 threshold. It this garbage truly what 13 - 18 year olds are watching these days?!

This movie does wonderful things for young women in the 13 - 18 age group. It reinforces such beautiful stereotypes as to how girls act (upon finding out she'll be taking a helicopter with her boyfriend to catch the jet to go to the game they're watching, she giggles and declares, "This is so going into my diary!" - that might be a paraphrase, I'm not searching the disc for that line!), reminds girls of the importance of wearing underwear, and encourages young women to enter their adulthood and engage in shouting at whoever will listen when they encounter an obstacle. An argument could be made that Just My Luck also encourages young women to improvise in order to wow the businessworld, but the actual process of Ashley improvising and succeeding with Damon is not shown.

This movie has no entertainment value. Virtually every line in the movie is terrible and that it took five people to write this piece of garbage boggles me. I. Marlene King, Amy Harris, Jonathan Bernstein, Mark Blackwell, and James Greer cannot, apparently, come up with a decent line or original concept between themselves. There was not a single gag in the movie that I did not see coming. My cats saw them coming, that's how obvious every joke in this movie was.

The characters are all terrible. Not one of them pops, not one of them is remotely empathetic. Instead, they are vacuous, spoiled, superstitious (though most claim not to be) and so poorly conceived that when one of the two protagonists switches luck, everyone associated with them switches luck as well. To wit, there's no decent explanation for why Maggie's song, which was scheduled to be covered by McFly - the band - would be dropped when Ashley's luck changes.

So, in addition to being a pointless debate on the force of luck - it's essentially treated as a parasite or communicable disease here that is transmitted by kissing - Just My Luck has not a single character that is worth watching. Instead, the film is a painful reminder that young people are being set up for . . . you know what, at the end of this movie, I'm not even sure what young people are being set up for! Are our 13 - 18 year olds perceptive enough to become as vacuous as the characters in this movie? Or can they not even aim that high?

It's hard to guess. What's not hard to evaluate here is the acting. It's terrible. Through and through this is a reminder that young people are not inherently talented. Director Donald Petrie seems to have gone out of his way to find the worst actors possible. So bad was the acting in Just My Luck that I was astounded to learn that McFly was a real band. Their amateur sound, which populates this movie, was so bad I could only figure that they were terrible actors cast poorly as musicians. As it is, they're just poor musicians being used as actors. This reminds us that artists often have different talents and a musical career should not be taken as a license to act.

Chris Pine and Lindsay Lohan (Jake and Ashley, respectively) have no on-screen chemistry and Pine's performance is, at best, derivative of Kyle Howard (in his role from Grosse Point). At best, it's stiff and utterly lacking in charisma and/or comic timing.

Lindsay Lohan is equally bad as Ashley. She has no real screen presence or charisma in this movie. Sure, she's made to look good, but she does not perform as anything even remotely close to entertaining here.

Back before the age of focus groups and target demographics, the industry was geared toward adults (okay, maybe we're forced to go all the way back to when books were the dominant medium of entertainment). Before things became geared toward children, they either were exposed to what the adults were exposed to (places in the U.S. that were literate had more literate - i.e. higher levels of diction and vocabulary - people) or they went without. Just My Luck makes the argument for having kids go without until they are mature enough to "get" adult concepts.

In recent days, I've seen some decent movies with young people. Ghost World (reviewed here!) and Dreamland (reviewed here!) were both superior movies with young people as protagonists. I don't know what either is rated, but they're bound to be better than this drecht for your young adults.

For other films with Chris Pine, check out my reviews of:
Star Trek
Smokin’ Aces
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement

1/10

For other film reviews, check out the Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Hazards In Traveling, Hazards In Cinema, The Utter Boredom Of My Life In Ruins.

The Good: Good scenery
The Bad: Not funny, Not charming, Utterly predictable, Emotionally simplified, Pacing
The Basics: Disappointing on so many levels, My Life In Ruins is a romantic comedy which is not funny and lacks any charm worth calling "romantic."


I see a lot of movies each year, especially during Summer Blockbuster Season, so it admittedly takes a lot to impress me with new movies. Conversely, it also takes a lot for me to utterly pan a film, to find that I have enjoyed nothing or as close to nothing as possible in seeing a movie when I do catch something new. Yet, this morning as I consider My Life In Ruins, I am overwhelmed by feelings of utter disappointment (whereas, I was more neutral on the other film I caught last night). My Life In Ruins is the latest "romantic comedy" to try to offer an alternative to the big special effects and "guy" movies that Summer Blockbuster Season is usually all about. I put quotes around "romantic comedy" because My Life In Ruins is neither funny, nor particularly romantic.

Instead, this is the exact type of predictable, charmless fare that makes one wonder if American cinema is truly dead. Moreover, because this film is geared toward women, one has to wonder if Hollywood actually thinks that women are so stupid as to find this sort of movie engaging (my answer is a resounding NO!" That Tom Hanks is involved as an executive producer, no doubt hoping for a runaway grosser like My Big Fat Greek Wedding says something as well, but I am not sure what (though, in this case it could just be that he made a bad investment). Judging by the otherwise empty theater I suspect that Hanks and others involved are realizing a tough lesson; it is not enough to simply be the only alternative to the big budget films of summer, one has to produce something worthwhile and good. My Life In Ruins is not that movie.

Georgia is an American living in Greece whose teaching job there disappeared, forcing her to seek other employment. She works for Pan Glass Tours giving tours to tourists from around the world on a hot, smelly bus for a week at a time. After her competitor, Nico, vows to get Georgia to quit so he can make all the money for the agency, Georgia is set upon by a group of tourists she finds both typical and hellish. Her driver is replaced at the last minute by a heavily-bearded man named Porcupio, who goes by the nickname "Poupi."

As the bus rolls through Greece, Georgia tries to engage each member of her ragtag tour: a spoiled sixteen year-old, an aged kleptomaniac, a joking widower, two Americans, a pair of divorcees and a trio of women who do not speak either language she does. Georgia's tours are serious, but not fun like Niko's and soon the bus is revolting over the fact that there is no air conditioning and they are not having fun. But between Irv (the joking widower) and Porcupio, Georgia is about to overcome her obstacles, loosen up and have fun on the road.

Because my instinct is to leap in with the bad right away, it behooves me to start with the redeeming factor of My Life In Ruins: the cinematography. Actually filmed on location in Greece and Spain, My Life In Ruins looks beautiful. The historical landmarks and shots of water and sky are absolutely beautiful, adequately selling the viewer on the greatness of Greece. This is a very easy film to watch in that regard.

Unfortunately, the rest of it is just awful. From the tired voice-overs to the predictable plot to the atrocious acting, My Life In Ruins is a mess that starts mediocre and dives into absolutely horrible with a speed I've not seen since The Out Of Towners (reviewed here!). Voice-overs seem to be used excessively in "chick flicks" for the establishment of plot and character aspects which are otherwise obvious in the visual medium of film. In other words, if a film is doing what it is supposed to well enough, voice-overs are usually not necessary. My Life In Ruins, unfortunately, starts the film off with Georgia's inner monologue as she explains how she ended up in Greece and what the status of her life is now. This includes a commentary on modern Greece that is otherwise pointless and repeated in more personal ways later in the film, making the initial statement of it redundant.

My Life In Ruins is terribly predictable as well. From the first moment that Porcupio shows up with his heavy beard, the educated viewer knows that: 1. He will be the primary male love interest and 2. He will shave the beard and suddenly look attractive in a more traditional fashion. These things do come to pass and when Porcupio shaves, he spends the rest of the film looking remarkably like Brendan Fraser. The rest of the film is problematically predictable in that it is so telegraphed that it would only entertain someone who has never once seen a romantic comedy before.

In addition to lacking any real zest or unique characters or character issues, My Life In Ruins mortgages any real emotional resonance in favor of making the film family-friendly (which is odd for a PG-13 film). So, for example, when the film seemed like it would make a reasonable and potentially touching departure for Irv, it retracts the sacrifice in a way that feels cheap. The result is a film where everything is happy and all moodiness comes to an end because nothing of consequence actually happens in the film. Similarly, there is an annoying tendency in the move for Georgia to deal with every character, so there is a whole sense of "she can win them all" to the story. So once Georgia makes the biggest changes to herself, there is still time to spend with her solving the minor problems of the next character or the next one and the result is that large tracts of the film feel entirely like filler.

Outside the ridiculously obvious romantic comedy aspect to the film, My Life In Ruins attempts to portray the humor of the hazards of traveling. Georgia defines her customers by "types" - the drinking Australians, the ugly Americans, the fighting Europeans who ought to be divorced, the etc. - and after she does that, the joke is simply in repeating her observation about each "type" over and over and over and over and over again. Wow does that get old! Beyond that, the humor is so banal that it ought to be enough for the WGA to revoke Mike Reiss's membership. "Humor" in this film consists of such things as dust in the air conditioning system spraying down on the tourists, a shoplifting tourist, a tourist getting sunblock in his eyes and Georgia thinking he is interested in her, elevators that do not work and small hotel rooms with a lumpy bed where nothing works. The closest to humor that the movie achieves with dialogue comes from Georgia telling the tourists that the bus is locked at each stop, so they can leave their cameras, purses, etc. on the bus which is followed by various characters asking "Can I leave my purse?" "camera" "etc." on the bus? Being that the film is set in Greece there is the obligatory gay joke, but it is more lame than offensive.

As for the acting, the less said about that, the better. Richard Dreyfuss is playing his "crank with a good heart" persona which we have seen before. Rachel Dratch is off with any sense of comic timing she might have had and Alexis Georgoulis is flat and dull as Porcupio, as opposed to silently mysterious. Nia Vardalos, who broke out with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, appears here slimmer, less funny and without any on-screen chemistry with Georgoulis. Unfortunately, here Vardalos's idea of acting is to simply look like she is charmed by what she is experiencing and that wears off quickly, especially when it comes at inappropriate moments.

My Life In Ruins is about keeping people happy and Georgia soon realizes that means spicing her stories of Greece up with sex and taking people shopping. There's only one demographic that would find that entertaining and it is not the "chicks" who like "chick flicks." It's the dumb chicks, the ones who like dumb chick flicks and unfortunately, My Life In Ruins insults the intelligence of even the most pedestrian viewers. There is nothing here worth seeing for anyone with a mature viewing palate.

For other works with Richard Dreyfuss, be sure to check out my takes on:
Weeds - Season 6
Piranha 3D
W.
Tin Man
The American President
Jaws

2/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Obvious Title Would Be "Missed Congeniality:" Miss Congeniality Doesn't Hold Up.

The Good: Good supporting acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Juvenile, Not terribly funny, Plot
The Basics: A typical Hollywood Fluff-comedy lacking in significant depth, Miss Congeniality fell flat being surprisingly un-funny.



Somewhere along the line, I apparently became one of the most humorless people. Or my standards failed to fall with the masses. Or maybe I'm just immune to simple charm. Regardless of the cause, I find myself in a rather striking minority where Miss Congeniality is concerned. I was quite shocked to find so very many people liked the film.

Miss Congeniality is supposedly a comedy. It's another one I came to prepared to enjoy (I've always liked William Shatner and Candice Bergen and I was delighted by Michael Caine's role), yet found myself not laughing. I continued to root for it to be funny. It wasn't.

The plot focuses on a recently chastised F.B.I. officer who is unofficially assisting on a serial killer/bomber/etc. case until it becomes clear that his next target is a beauty pageant. So, Grace Hart is brought officially onto the case as an undercover beauty pageant contestant to attempt to figure out the crime that will be perpetrated and foil it. Her partner is a dimwit who seems entirely out of his element, the pageant is run by a fanatic, and hosted by a loon.

It seems to have the elements of being funny. Yet, it falls flat. The typical scene that is supposed to be humorous is one such as during the talent performance of the event. Grace's water glass orchestra is drunk by the other contestants, so she decides her talent is self defense and she drags Eric (her partner) onto the stage and proceeds to beat the snot out of him. They say humor, when analyzed is often not funny. In this case, it doesn't need analysis to be unfunny. As it happened, it didn't seem funny. I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this in one of my reviews yet, so here I'll pass on this anecdote. When I was quite young, my step brother went to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off with my step grandmother. They returned home and my step brother was fuming with humiliation. Apparently, at some point in the film, Grandma Dorothy said loudly, "Why is everybody laughing? This is stupid." Well, kudos to my ever-perceptive ex-step Grandma! I imagined myself in a theater seeing Miss Congeniality and when Eric keeps getting beaten up by Grace, saying "This is stupid." And it is.

The only truly redeeming things about this film is that it makes an attempt to have character. That is, enough time is spent attempting to give Grace depth and persona as to warrant acknowledgment. That and the supporting performances. Benjamin Bratt and Sandra Bullock are pretty face, who-cares? actors. Bullock remains in my book the "We couldn't afford Julia Roberts" substitute. Bratt left no real impression. Shatner was funny. This film proves what some people knew back in the 60s; he CAN act. Candice Bergen did her best with the material. The true winner (and sole reason I'd ever endure this film again) was Michael Caine. His flamboyant, eccentric beauty contestant agent role Vic is wonderful. He had fantastic mannerisms, real vivid facial expressions and delightful levels of character for a minor role.

So far, my lasting impression after 24 hours was I didn't laugh. How congenial is that?

For other films with Sandra Bullock, please check out my reviews of:
The Proposal
The Blind Side
Crash
28 Days
Forces Of Nature

4/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page on the subject!

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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