Somebody has told Garry Marshall one whopper of a lie. That person would be screenwriter Katherine Fugate, and the lie is that if they keep making these witless, charmless comedies using every vaguely romantic holiday on the calendar, eventually they'll make one half as good as Love Actually. There's no way it can happen, no matter how star-laden the endeavor, with a script this over crowded with cliches and ridiculous monologues that will have you wishing the year's end would arrive just a tad bit quicker.
If you saw Valentine's Day then you know exactly what you're in for. A soupy hodge podge of movie stars and supposed movie stars all crammed into cookie cutter roles we've seen a million times before. Ashton Kutcher, who was the love obsessed flower guy in the last film, is now a bitter, heartbroken slacker who despises everything New Year's Eve apparently stands for. The Perk-bot 2000 known as Katherine Heigl is a high class chef still seething over being dumped by an aging rocker played by Jon Bon Jovi(they pretend he's not old but he so is!). Hilary Swank is the surprisingly famous Vice President of the group responsible for making the Times Square ball drop at midnight, which of course goes terribly awry. And in the one segment that felt like it was yanked from some dreadful Terms of Endearment spinoff, Robert De Niro is an old man in a hospital bed facing his final hours, and of course he's got a ton of regrets. Fortunately Halle Berry(sporting an unattractive Dragonball Z haircut) is his nurse so everything will be ok.
That's just a fraction of the beautiful people Marshall and Fugate deploy to try and win over our cynical hearts. Zac Efron, Abigail Breslin(who needs to fire her make-up people), Michelle Pfeiffer(!!?!), Lea Michele, Josh Duhamel, and about thirty others all get their two minutes to shine. There are so many characters that it becomes completely unnecessary to know what any of their names are, or what their situation is. Then again, character development isn't what this movie is about. It's about sucking down your holiday dollars with so-called wisdom about love that was likely pulled from the fortune cookie that came with Fugate's shrimp fried rice. New Year's Eve knows about as much about love as the Washington Redskins offensive line does about astrophysics. The only thing that matters is that everybody gets to hook up or get that all important kiss at the stroke of midnight. Well, this being a Warner Brothers flick there's also the need for a shocking amount of product placement. By the end you'll be convinced the greatest promise the new year brings is Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
By the time Ludacris, playing some all knowing Yoda-like cop, has dispensed his fifth pearl of wisdom to Swank's character you'll likely be bored to tears, or overcome by the film's mawkishness. Marshall is just competent enough to know that these sorts of movies are so easy to read that he tries to screw you up with some last second twists. Who hooks up with who never goes exactly how you may think, but it speaks to just how interchangeable these characters are that you can basically put anybody together and it makes the same amount of sense. If there was an ounce of self awareness maybe there would be a "so awful it's fun" watchability factor, but no. Even the disastrous post-credits blooper reel is a disaster, an obvious attempt to make us believe everybody had a knee slappin' good time making a film they must all know is the cinematic equivalent of packing peanuts.
Chances are you know if New Year's Eve is a movie for you. Guys will no doubt be dragged kicking and screaming, or will silently resign themselves to the hellish fate that awaits. If she's dying for a frantic, drama filled comedy about people desperately grasping for a human connection on the last day of the year, maybe convince her to rent a copy of 200 Cigarettes instead. Or wait until next year when Marshall and Fugate reteam for Columbus Day. Better not give them any ideas.
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