The Movie New Year’s Eve – Review

There’s something magical about New Year’s Eve that makes the holiday something many people look forward to. It’s a day to forget about the past 364 days and forge a new path for the next year, to right what was wrong and move forward. Unfortunately New Year’s Eve will make you regret every single moment of the film’s running time and forge many resolutions to never see a film like this again.
Much like Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve is a multi-layer film revolving around a handful of storylines involving people getting ready to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another. And in the midst of all the chaos of Times Square on the holiday two dozen actors come together to push through a remarkably convoluted storyline that manages to give everyone a happy ending by the end of the film’s two hour running time.
The problem is that the film follows such a remarkably boring and pedestrian plot to get to all of them. We’ve seen all of these plots before, from Jon Bon Jovi and Katherine Heigl as a couple formerly together and now seeing if they can try again to Robert De Niro as a dying cancer patient wanting to see the ball drop one more time, it’s the summation of every bad sitcom plot about the holiday from the past 20 years rolled into one. And one thought keeps popping up that’s hard to shake.
What did everyone in this film do to deserve to be in such a poor film?
When you think about the sheer talent involved in making the film, and the sheer amount of prestige award nominations and wins in film and the theatre as well as on television, a film like this with virtually no redeeming action becomes that much sadder to watch. It’s as if everyone opted to combine their talents into one film, knowing it would be a hit because of the subject and not the material, in order to do other projects.
The film’s redeeming quality is that Garry Marshall has pulled together a strong visual presence for the film. He captures the feel of Times Square in terms of the sheer mass of people and excitement in the air. If this was part of a documentary then he would have the beginnings of a strong visual presence to it. As it is he’s just crafted a perfectly acceptable film in terms of being a striking production but has absolutely nothing redeeming to it beyond it.