'The Last Song' is a Nicholas Sparks adaptation starring Miley Cyrus. I'll say first off I didn't intend to see this movie, it was Devo's pick. But I'm secure enough to say that I enjoyed watching it and enjoy movies that fall into the genre "chick flick" or "romantic comedy." For example I love the movies 'American Sweethearts' and '10 Things I Hate About You.' And I also want to say before I get to deep into describing and critiquing the plot that I'll see anything. There is no movie in the history of movies that I wouldn't pay ten bucks to see in the theatre if someone or possibly no one influenced me to go. I hated 'Transformers' I didn't like the TV show and I didn't like the theatrical version. Adam and I went to 'Transformers 2' on opening night. What I mean is I love movies and find enjoyment out of almost all movies. I can enjoy watching almost anything. There are somethings which I'd never see again like 'Blindness' which is unarguably the worst movie I've ever seen. But I watched the whole thing. You get the idea.
(Spoilers on The Last Song to follow)
'The Last Song' opens on the very classic generic type scene mom dropping kids off for the summer with dad. Parents are divorced, kids live in New York with mom, dad moved back to small town in Georgia after the divorce. My first problem- you never find out what town it is and you never find out what the parents do for a living. It appears their dad is a well respected member of the community who is retired at 45, can play the piano, make stained glass windows, but has no discernible income. So Miley plays the main character "Ronnie" who is a piano wizard(which they never really let you know, your just suppose to infer) but she gave up playing to spite her father when he moved out of New York. She's 18 and about to turn down the Julliard school of music. Needless to say she's super angsty. She meets a local guy(surprise!) who through the course of the film wins her heart. Their interactions are kind of ok to watch but the contrived plot devices detract. For example a local girl tells Ronnie 'he does this to all the girls' and she flips out and tries to break it off. Overall the movie is very predictable. When Ronnie and Will(said guy) start to really bond is over a sea turtles nest that Ronnie saves. I would say that was the best scene of the movie, the actors don't really talk and the turtles crawl out of the sand and into the sea. After this scene Greg Kinnear, the dad, collapses because (surprise!) he's sick with cancer and just wanted to spend some time with his kids before he died.
Oh yeah turns out Will is a rich kid with baggage so all the stupid stereotypes follow that. Domineering parents, Ronnie not being well bred enough etc. etc. Big Problem #2- they're suppose to be in Georgia on the coast, no one has an accent, not one single person. There's a montage of Ronnie and her dad spending time together, he dies during her playing his 'last song' and she plays it at his funeral. Will and Ronnie get back together in the end. Credits. Ok. I'd give this movie a 5/10. The plot was very predictable but thats ok sometimes we like predictable. We like the idea of girl meets guy, they fall in love, have problems, get back together. Or like estranged father tries to reconnect with children. We like those story lines because we can identify with them on a very basic storytelling level. What I hated most of all, the biggest problem with the movie as I saw it, you guessed it- Miley Cyrus. My number one thing in fiction(movies, TV etc.) is that the main character has to be likable. Miley Cyrus not only is a bad actress but when she found the character Ronnie she wasn't likable. She had no charm, wasn't interesting, I had no idea why Will supposedly the cool guy in town would be interested. She's sullen, combative, mean, reserved, rude, immature, irresponsible, unreasonable I mean I could go on and on. She flys off the handle multiple times with her Dad and Will for virtually no or very illogical reasons. Obviously her dad has to love her and yeah he's dying but any other guy...
Why make the effort?
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