You Again (Blu-ray)
Lately the romantic comedies that have been coming out of Hollywood have left me disenchanted with the genre. Plots have been weak, dialogue has been ridiculous and lazy and the actresses have fallen from grace. Gone are the Meg Ryans and Julia Roberts and now we’re left with actresses like Katherine Heigl and Kristen Bell. Although these two are good in their own right, they choose projects that are infinitely worse than their predecessors. So bad in fact, that the only way to even get through some of these films is to lower your expectations to such a level that the only way to go is up, as was the case with YOU AGAIN.
Marni (Kristen Bell) has braved the tortuous bowels of high school, worked through her issues and has come out on top in her career. In fact, at the beginning of the movie she is promoted to Vice President for one of her firms branches. She rides this high for about ten minutes as she travels home for her brother’s wedding, only to discover that he is marrying the girl who made her teenage years insufferable. The rest of the movie is Marni trying to once again overcome her past and expose her future sister-in-law for the monster that she was.
As mentioned before, this film was tolerable only because my expectations were so low but even that didn’t save this film. High school is rough there’s no doubt about that, but to have a strong female lead who claims for the first ten minutes how she overcame the experience and it was what shaped her today, only to throw it away and digress so much is insulting and annoying. No doubt that most people in her exact situation would have a tough time getting over it, but surely they would move on and let it go which is exactly what Marni’s character could not do.
Another problem with the film was the supporting cast, none of them really had any redeeming qualities. Marni’s mother, Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis), was pretty dense for a mother whose daughter was bullied in high school as was the brother Will. Marni’s enemy, Joanna (Odette Yustman), was a little more right on the money, in fact, I could probably think of three girls from my own high school years that fit her profile to a tee. Sigourney Weaver’s character, Ramona who was Joanna’s aunt, was the worst of all of them. To see a successful business woman crumble because of an incident that happened over twenty years ago was almost unforgivable. Even Betty White’s character was pointless and she was obviously thrown in to get some cheap laughs. The only redeeming character in this entire film was played by the adorable Kristin Chenoweth, and that was because her screen time was so little which was good for her and the audience.
Have I made it clear how bad I thought this film was? The only reason it even scored so high is because I expected it to be so much worse. I really hope Kristen Bell can find a really good script whether it be on television or in theater, because she is slowly destroying her short lived film career by choosing drivel like this. The only reason Betty White, Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis can get away with it is because they are veterans who have some good stuff under their belt, but even they can’t get away with doing this again.
BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video (1080p 2.40:1): Beautiful colors which come across crisp and clean- too bad the movie was too terrible for me to enjoy it.
Audio (5.1 DTS-HD): Nothing special here, everything sounds nice and when music is played in the film the surround sound picks it up nicely.
Deleted Scenes (26:58): Eleven deleted scenes that the director clearly said he wanted in the film, you can watch with or without his commentary.
Following Flickman: On Set With the Director (6:59): A behind-the-scenes featurette with the director and his interesting approach to directing this large of a cast.
Blooper Dance Party (5:01): Basic gag reel, nothing special here
Ask the Cast (1:02): Uh, not sure why you would even bother putting something so short and ridiculous on a Blu-ray. This was a quick Q&A with the actresses.
Funny or Die (2:59): A mock interview with the crew from funnyordie.com.
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