wash, rinse, repeat...

Rating: 3/10 (22 July 2016)

there is an old saying- "if you throw enough s**t at a wall, some of it will stick..." and that is what Hollywood is doing almost constantly these days.
Like accountants they calculate- "Ryan Gosling, plus Emma Stone, plus Julianne Moore, plus Steve Carell... this movie should gross $300 million... (and it did only $143 million)"
This is an unimaginative and uninspired 'formula movie' that you will swear you have seen before, and it's easy to understand why.
Carell plays an identical character to his depressed-loser from 'Little Miss Sunshine' meets his no-idea loser characters from 'the Forty Year Virgin' and 'the Office'. At this point he's just turning up and reading lines, occasionally raising or lowering his volume.
Gosling has been told by the media that he is gods gift to women and is creepily vomitus in his- 'cool person does a makeover on a loser' roll (hasn't that been done to death already?).
Kevin Bacon? I'm embarrassed for the guy, he's an A-list actor playing a C-list doofus supporting role? I suspect Kyra Sedgwick made him do it for losing a bet.
Stone can do better than this, she was amazing in 'Birdman' and so lovable as 'Gwen Stacy' but just punches the time-card here.
It has that sickly- 'every story/character is separate, but all connected with a twist by the end' template that has become so overused in all of the "Day" movies (Valentines, Mother's, New Year's etc.)' and every Rom-com since 'Love Actually'. It's so choreographed, your eyes will roll like a cartoon character at the predictability of this script that was obviously written with a 'scriptwriters template program' (probably the 'Love Actually' template?).
This is a- 'straight to DVD' type movie, that I hope you have someone willing to make-out with while you watch, or a lot of drinks choke down this very ordinary Steve Carell joint.