Serendipity
I serendi-pity dah foo who sees dis goo!
"Kiss me Jon!" Sara says. "Kiss yourself!" Jon replies.
"Kiss me Jon!" Sara says. "Kiss yourself!" Jon replies.
I've gotten two good things out of "Serendipity." 1) I learned a great new vocabulary word. 2) Oops, sorry, there was only one good thing.
Serendipity basically means "a fortunate accident," a word that actually half-describes this movie, surprisingly enough. It was an accident! It certainly wasn't fortunate though.
Well, that's not the reason they chose this title. In fact, this movie is about how Jon (John Cusack) and Sara (Kate Beckinsale) happen to meet in a department store. They both want to buy a pair of black gloves, but there's only one pair left. So Cusack goes haywire and rips out a bazooka and blows the entire department store to smithereens! Ya right! I wish! No, Jon just decides to let Sara have the dirty old gloves while I grumble feeling disenfranchised. Okay, so these two people decide to go to a coffee shop called "Serendipity" that serves coffee. So they get some coffee. Except their coffees had a lot of whipped cream on it. (Mmmmmm! Sounds tasty!) They have this most amazing conversation with each other, but Sara doesn't want to give poor Jon his phone number (Poor Jon!) Sara claims that if fate meant them to be romantic together, they will meet again. So Sara leaves in a taxicab, Jon kicks a pile of snow. About an hour later they meet again. They have this most amazing night together! Unfortunately for poor 'ole John, Sara wants to leave everything FURTHUR to fate (because Jon accidentally lost Sara's phone number in a burst of wind.) So she puts her phone number in a book and sells it to a used bookstore and he puts his phone number on a five dollar bill and spends it. There! Now they have access to each other's phone numbers, but they don't know where to find it! I'm not going to continue with this plot because you'll probably think I'm joking.
I think now is a good time to tell you that I am a (proud) man and I *DON'T* hate chick flicks. In fact, I actually enjoyed "Sleepless in Seattle," "Forget Paris," "You've Got Mail," and even (though I don't want to admit it) "Up Close and Personal." The reason I enjoyed these movies is because, even though many of them were quite predictable, they had good scripts, a good story, good acting, and most importantly of all, they were charming.
"Serendipity" on the other hand, fails to deliver any of these good qualities and, plus, it's so predictable that I'd imagine that if you show the first fifteen minutes of this film to an audience, the majority of the people could probably go home because they all ready know the ending! This movie isn't just predictable, it's PAINFULLY predictable, as I have mentioned earlier, predictability is a quality that all good chick flicks possess (usually not at this extreme level though.) So, when it really comes down to it, it is okay for this film to be predictable. There are many other factors, however, that made "Serindipity" utterly fail.
One quality that I thought "Serendipity" would certainly succeed in is acting. There are some pretty famous names in the cast! There's the star, John Cusack, of course. There's the co-star, Kate Beckinsale, who I never heard of, but she's so pretty that it doesn't really matter whether or not she can act. There's the ex-Saturday Night Live star, Molly Shannon, who is funny if she's put in the right roles, and there's the "American Pie" and "National Lampoon's Vacation" character, Eugene Levy. Unfortunately, everybody overplays their roles, almost to the extreme. Their acting in this movie is so artificial and so unfunny that it can really only work successfully in a high school play. The acting is terribly atrocious.
The direction put the final nail in the coffin. Without a descent script or descent acting (which is probably the director's fault as well) the director fails to make this film charming. You can't be charmed when everything else about this movie leaves you discontented.
To justify the final verdict score, which is above an F, I would like to mention that John Cusack, while he was overplaying his role, made me laugh once. Just in case you plan on seeing this film, in spite of my negative review, I won't tell you what it was! (I don't want to spoil EVERYTHING for ya!)
FINAL VERDICT: D
YECHT! Chick flick to the extreme! Take me away! Let me out! The actors stink! The screenplay stinks! The director stinks! Everything stinks! Except I learned a quite useful vocabulary word. Oops! Sorry! I told you what it means all ready, didn't I? I'm sorry!
Oh yeah! I also have gotten another laugh out of this movie! It wasn't intentional, though (at least I hope not!) Kate Beckinsale's fiancee in this film, who is the leader of a terrible New-aged music band, asked Kate if she wants to go to Bora Bora for their honeymoon. Kate responded, "Sounds sexy, sexy." I let out a most ridiculous laugh making the people in front of me think I was crazy (Maybe you're thinking that too.) That line was so bad that it was HILARIOUS! The director should go into the annals along side Ed Wood.
Wait a second. Was this supposed to be a chick flick parody? If it was, then it was pretty good. If that's the case, I'll give it a B.
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Starring:
John Cusack (as Ralph Nader), Kate Beckinsale (as Barbara Bush), Molly Shannon (as Laura Bush), Jeremy Piven (as Billy Clinton), Bridget Moynahan (as Former President Hillary Clinton), Eugene Levy (as Jean Levi, it's funny I never got that connection unitl now), Amita Balla (as Al Gore), Helene Cardona (as Molly Shannon), John Corbett (as Molly Shannon), Leo Fitzpatrick (as Molly Shannon), Tony Kaan (as Molly Shannon) (she likes to kick)
Directed by:
Peter Chelsom (as Ed Wood)
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2001 romance/comedy (ewwwwwwwww!)
Rated PG-13.
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Don Ignacio's score: D