Thursday, March 20, 2008

DAN IN REAL LIFE

DAN IN REAL LIFE IS REALLY NOT ENTERTAINING
Keep in mind that I love Steve Carell (Dan) as an all around talented guy. He is the reason I watch The Office religiously. However, in this movie, he should have left The Office at the office. This is a typical romantic comedy type of show where whoops, I fell in love with someone unobtainable. We've seen this plot line many times before and it was done much better many times before. There are moments, places that give you that "home with the family" feeling and the actors seemed to have bonded well enough for that general idea. Another however, that idea goes no where fast. Carell plays half of his Office character and half real-actor character. The two don't mix. Another un-mixable ingredient in this film was casting Juliette Binoche as Marie, the love interest. It's like taking a piece of jewelry from Tiffany's and putting in a plain brown wrapper. The two had no chemistry together and I looked at my watch constantly during the movie. There was a good cast, but no one stood out. Dane Cook (Mitch) was less irritating than usual, at least for most of the movie. Dianne Wiest and John Mahony (as the parents) were sadly underused. The writing was bad, the plot was bad, the movie, was bad.
NOT a PICK: One or two good scenes does not a good movie make. Skip it.