Adventureland hit movie stores and online outlets this past week. Don't worry if you didn't see this movie in the theaters or haven't had a chance to rent it, because you've seen this movie before. Adventureland follows an old formula: boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Something happens that make boy and girl break up. Of course, they still love each other. Then something happens that brings boy and girl back together.
Adventureland falls into the second category of movie that has nothing to say. Greg Mottola, who directed Superbad, has brought nothing new to a genre that is already crowded by other movies saying the exact same thing. It's Say Anything, without the boom box. It's Jerry Maguire without the You had me at hello. It's The Notebook, but without the notebook.
Mottola has failed to create and develop characters that we care about one-way or the other. If James and Em get back together, that's fine. If they don't get back together, that's fine. If Mike is cheating on his wife, that's fine. If they all get hit by a bus, that's fine too. The impression is that Mottola doesn't care about his characters and if a director doesn't care about his characters then why should we? It's a shame, because the film has a very talented roster.
In the lead role of James is Jesse Eisenberg. James is the self-deprecating, uncomfortable, nerdy guy who is figuring out life. Eisenberg is perfect in the role.
Playing Eisenberg's love interest is Kristen Stewart...give me a moment to regain my composure.... Stewart plays Em, the girl that shows James the amusement park ropes. I will go on record right now saying, "I like Kristen Stewart." She reminds me of the girl in school (high school, GED classes, college) who is hotter than a three-alarm fire, but has a low self-esteem. You know the girl who has to cover everything, from the bangs that go past her eyes to the baggy clothes that cover everything else. The girl who thinks that she has to look weird and reject others before they can reject her. The girl who could have anyone, if she were to give it half a chance.
Of course, James falls deeply and madly in love with her before she even opens her mouth. I don't blame the guy; it's Kristen Stewart! However, there is not one single moment in the film that we can see a spark between the two of them. The movie goes from the two of them meeting and then jumps to them being in love. It just happens and we have to go along with it, because Mottola hasn't given us any other choice.
In this type of movie there is always something that tears the happy couple apart. Playing the wedge that comes between James and Em is Mike, played by Ryan Reynolds. I like Reynolds as an actor. He has talent and in movies, like Adventureland, he gets to show it. Too often we see Reynolds in movies where he is the smart ass or the class clown. I admit it; he does a great job in movies like Van Wilder, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and Waiting. But, it's movies like Definitely, Maybe, The Nines and The Amityville Horror that we really get to see Reynolds shine.
Mike, the amusement park's handy man, had had an affair with Em. James freaks out after he learns that the two of them had something going on in the past. Of course, he doesn't want to see her again. This is not the sad moment that it should be because Mottola has shoved on us a love connection between James and Em that we never believed in the first place. We still don't care when James realizes he made a mistake dumping a hottie like Kristen Stewart and tries to win her back.
Remakes are a very common and ordinary aspect of filmmaking in modern-day Hollywood. With that being the case, I can't say that I was surprised at the fact that there was a remake of Snow White coming to the big screen called Snow White and The Huntsman. This one is different from some of the other films based on this story. This one is darker and has more action than the others, but it's also more mature.
With a familiar story, Snow White and The Huntsman has an evil queen (Charlize Theron) who will do anything to keep her power. When it is learned that Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is destined to replace her, she learns of her whereabouts and orders a hunter (Chris Hemsworth) to track her down and prevent it from happening. The huntsman however has plans of his own once he comes to understand who she is and why she is so important.
Snow White and The Huntsman got off to a solid start and stayed that way for a decent amount of time. They took their time building up the story and much of the early stages of the movie keeps the spotlight on the Queen, her rise to power and her continuous fight to stay there. After keeping allowing her to be the center of attention a while, the focus then shifts onto the other characters and their roles in the story.
Once that happens, the movie takes an obvious and significant hit and slows down a bit because of it. There were quite a few "nothing" scenes during this time and I know that some of it could have been greatly reduced in size. Stretching out thin material is one of my pet peeves and it can hurt any movie that it occurs in. In Snow White and The Huntsman, this practice made things truly boring at this point in the film.
In between these stages of boredom, they did manage to continue the story as the are almost fully focusing on the journey of the characters Snow White and the huntsman, but they also put in some quality action. The fights/battles that are taking place make the movie at least somewhat tolerable when nothing else is happening. That's important for me, because everything around the action is so drawn out and tedious. I never actually make an early exit, but some movies make you think about it and this is one of them. I thought about it on at least a couple of occasions during this movie.
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