Movie Review: No Strings Attached

Sappiest RomCom of the year award. Hands down. It's interesting, but no more and no less than what one would expect from a generic romantic comedy.

She has no pants.

I think that I enjoyed No Strings Attached mostly because it starred Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman. Having Ludacris show up was an added bonus in that I giggled everytime he said something...normal.

I really wasn't expecting to see Luda.

It was cute. It was funny. It was sappy. The entire experience was much like eating a large piece of cake. It's delicious, sugary, and topped with rainbow sprinkles. However, after nearly 2 hours of eating said cake, you realize that you feel kind of nauseous. It's too much sugar and happiness all at once. It's too much goodness.  By the end of the movie, I was expecting a rainbow to spontaneously form and for candy and gold and kittens to rain from the sky. It was a cute overload.

Too much cute. Ick.

The acting was applaud-able; Natalie Portman can produce a pretty convincing pouty face and Ashton Kutcher didn't suck nearly as much as I thought he would. Who knew that he could do more than yell "YOU JUST GOT PUNK'D"?

The movie is supposed to have a message, right? That it's not possible to be in a  no-strings-attached physical relationship? Television, other movies, and popular media seem to suggest otherwise. I'll pass no judgement on whether or not this type of relationship is possible; I'll only say that if the film had a different ending (aka, the two beautiful people did not end up together), that considerably fewer tickets would be bought at the box office. We need the beautiful people to end up together.

Best.Bouquet.Ever.

Sappy as this movie was, I was in fact a major fan of the carrot scene. If a boy brought me a bouquet of carrots, I would be impressed. I would be beyond impressed. I would date him immediately. But maybe that's just because I really like carrots. Like, to the point where people call me a rabbit every so often. Don't judge me.

On that note, the real flaw with the movie was that Ashton Kutcher was just too perfect. No man will chase a pretty girl when he's pretty enough, himself, to get any other girl. He's too nice, too attractive, too considerate, and too perfect. His character raises the bar for real men everywhere and who only knows if his character exists in real life. But the thing is, now all girls are going to want one. Every girl would like to find the perfect man who will demand a date, bring cupcakes to her house and give her a bouquet of carrots. Kutcher's character will make all real men seem inferior until this film is out of theaters. Way to go Ashton.

We just want Mr. Perfect, dammit. Is that really so much to ask for?

HP is epic, but with some borrowing

I won't lie. I was really impressed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. I mean, I've only been anticipating its release for months now. And it delivered. My blood pressure remained unhealthily high throughout the film (always ready for something to jump out and scare the living daylights out of me), and after 2 and a half hours of Potter, I left the theater feeling rather winded and exhausted. As fantastic as the film was, however, I thought that it had quite a lot of...overlap with the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Like, a questionable amount of overlap.

TWO THUMBS UP, DUH.

Similarities between HP7 and Lord of the Rings

• Barren scenery with lush mountains in the distance
• Rapid switches between loud music and jolts of silence
• Flashes to scenes that are not really explained or played out in full
• Flashes of a great wizard falling down, down, down  
• Musical score -- not the same, but containing a lot of the same thematic motifs and elements (except for the music of the final scene, which sounded a lot like the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song in a different key)
• In the characters' search to destroy an evil object, they wear it on a chain around their neck and become corrupted and weakened by its power
• Elves are supercool

So.Much.Intensity.

Harry and Hermione on their way to Mordor?