Rating of
2.5/4
New Year's Eve
MovieAddict - wrote on 03/29/13
The Star-Studded cast alone makes this movie worth seeing and the focus was New York City which I loved!
The best place to start is with Michelle Pfeiffer's dowdy character, who decides to quit her job and experience different things. She enlists the help of a courier named Paul (Zac Efron) to help her complete her New Year’s resolutions by midnight in exchange for exclusive tickets for a special party. Meanwhile Paul’s best friend is New Yorker Randy (Ashton Kutcher) who could care less about all the hype of New Year’s Eve. He gets stuck on the elevator with his new neighbor Elise (Glee's Lea Michele) who is the back-up singer a music superstar named Jensen (Jon Bon Jovi). Jensen is trying to win back the love of his life, a professional caterer named Laura (Katherine Heigl) with whom he almost tied the knot before but got cold feet. Meanwhile Laura is catering for the same big New Year's Eve bash. But hovering around Jensen like a cat in heat is Laura's sous chef, Ava (the very bodacious Sofia Vergara).
We meet Claire (Hilary Swank), who has recently been appointed Vice President of the Times Square Alliance and whose task is to ensure the New Year's countdown goes on smoothly. There to lend support is her friend, a security guard named Brendan (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges). As would be expected, things don't go smoothly; as the ball is being raised into position, several of its lights suddenly go out. Everything grinds to a halt and Claire is forced to make an impromptu speech to the spectators on Times Square which resonates nicely. After a while, it becomes apparent that the only one who can fix the ball is a Russian electrician named Kominsky (Hector Elizondo) who they recently fired a few weeks ago.
The beautiful Halle Berry plays a nurse named Aimee trying to help a cancer patient Stan (Robert DeNiro) whose final wish is to be taken to the roof so that he can watch the ball drop one last time. Josh Duhamel who plays Sam, gets stranded in Connecticut after a wedding and is forced to hitch a ride with a family in an RV. He has to make it to New York City in time to give a speech, and possibly reunite with a woman he met on New Year's Eve a year ago, a single mom named Kim (Sarah Jessica Parker) who must find her runaway teenage daughter, Hailey (Abigail Breslin), who desperately wants to have a New Year's kiss with a boy from school that she likes.
Finally, two pregnant couples – one played by Jessica Biel and Seth Meyers and Til Schweiger and Sarah Paulson as the other –are on the verge of delivery; it becomes a competition, as the first to give birth on New Year's Day with a $25,000 cash prize from the hospital.
It's mushy, a little too coincidental, and often times highly predictable, but I realize that this is a holiday movie and was genuinely touched by the themes of second chances, forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and above all, love. Delightful cameos from American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, who makes a sharp dig at Dick Clark, Matthew Broderick as Swank's boss, Cary Elwes, Alyssa Milano and even Mayor Michael Bloomberg drops in for the fun.
