New Year's Eve (2011)

Garry Marshall's new holiday outing is his first since Valentine's Day, with both being very similar in content and ideas, but with this new movie being obviously the better. Not much better, but better nonetheless. New Year's Eve is not a holiday that I ever thought of as being a big deal. Sure, when I was a kid, I got to stay up until 11 (time difference) and watch the ball drop on TV. I suppose that people who party and whatnot hold a different opinion of the holiday than I do, but I just see New Year's Eve as the precursor to a day off of work. However, I can understand there being people out there who have emotional attachment to the holiday, like a certain father and daughter in this movie. Those parts of this movie, the ones that really seem to care, stand out and make me want to like it. Other sections don't work so well, causing me to turn all "mean critic" again. But what can you expect from a movie that has a dozen famous people in it, all with top billing?

Like Valentine's Day before it, New Year's Eve is a movie that follows numerous different celebrities in their soap opera predicaments that lead up to the big holiday itself, where several of the stars' stories intermingle. Neither movie is really all that great; Valentine's Day suffered from an overwhelming stupidity and lack of humor, while New Year's Eve also isn't very funny, but makes up for it with a lot of heart. Director Garry Marshall seems like he's probably a really nice guy, which is probably why his movies tend to be spastically optimistic. There's a scene in this movie where Hillary Swank gives a heartfelt speech on TV that all the major characters hear and it inspires them and everyone feels all warm and fuzzy. There's another scene where one pregnant woman threatens another, saying that she will have the first baby of the new year and therefore win the $25,000 prize. So, we have a movie where optimism meets crazy. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when you have this many stars in one place, you can feel the desperate attempts to find something for them to do. Some of the subplots really work, like the good-hearted scenes of Zac Efron showing a homely Michelle Pfeiffer a good time on the town. Others, like the really forced and slightly inappropriate romance between Ashton Kutcher and Glee's Lea Michelle, do not. Thankfully, all the stories blend nicely and never get too complicated. So what if nothing funny happens?

My major beef with this movie is that it will be irrelevant next month. This was a movie made for today's teens who call anything made before the last few months "old." Everything is as modern as possible, with all the faces being immediately recognizable as stars of now, and even the score featuring songs that have only very recently become hits. In 20 years, the teens who think this is so hip will have kids who won't know who any of these people are. Even more immediate is the fact that half the stars of 2010's Valentine's Day aren't popular anymore. Truly good movies are timeless, which leaves New Year's Eve out in the cold. However, this is a far more pleasant time at the movies than plenty of other examples I can think of, but I don't expect time will be kind to it. There are better and worse ways to herald in the new year.

5/10