Clichés strung together

Rating: 4/10 (20 January 2006)

I believe in formulas. I don't know why, but some story structures just work and others don't. Mozart used formulas, Dickens and Hitchcock and Shakespeare all used formulas. The artistry and uniqueness of a work of art comes from the interpretation or expression of the formula. A cliché is an overused interpretation or expression of a formula, it has nothing to do with structure. As a filmmaker, you can make a terrible mistake by trying to win your audience over by stringing clichés together, thinking you are doing formula. It's like a human body with no skeleton. By all appearances, it should seem normal and acceptable, but there is no internal structure that gives it function and form. It flops into a giant mess. Unfortunately, this movie is all clichés, and no internal structure, or formula that gives the clichés structure. Since clichés are fundamentally overused tactics, this movie scores low on originality. With no structure, it scores low on fundamental story. So I give it a 3 out of ten. But I bump it up to a 5 or 6 for the music and cinematography, but then take out 1 point for adding the mid life crisis angle all the heroes experience, simply because it is just too Big Chill, baby boomer navel reflection for my taste. Four to Five. Big ups to the actors, who all get 8 and 9s for making something watchable out of this clatter of narcissistic baby boomer clichés.