A sad stain on the brilliant legacy of Scrubs

Rating: 4/10 (7 December 2004)

From the moment I saw the first preview and saw Zach Braff staring forlornly into the camera while blending into the oh-so tacky wallpaper I my stomach clinched with the fear that this movie would ruin my weekly Scrubs experience. Thankfully it has not, but Garden State is still neck and neck with Napoleon Dynamite for most overrated movie of year and possibly Millennium for the following reasons:
1) A watered-down version of J.D. can't sustain a feature-length film.
2) Every visual "moment" I was supposed to feel was so boring and pretentious that my eyes roamed around the screen hoping for something interesting to find.
3) Although I like Natalie Portman's performance, the "weird girl that doesn't care what people think (but really does)" character is tired and obvious. That said, I almost bought it.
4) Nothing happened... in a bad way. I'm plenty into sparse plots and extended takes or anything else, but in this case the movie pretended to have something happen and actually believed there was some kind of payoff in the acquaintance, turned grave-robber, turned true friend ending (and I did find Peter Sarsgaard hilarious and perfect) but there was no payoff, just a disappointing ability to tie up an implied meaningful ending.
5) Talking to his dad. (I won't say a bad word about Ian Holm) I'm 24 and I've said a lot of "honest" things to my parents, but this seemed more like an after-school special or some kind of repressed kid's fantasy than a genuine interaction by a father and son.
6) The soundtrack. I love Iron & Wine and I love Postal Service, and mixing the two together seems like a great idea but it's not. The odds of the song being improved are so small, only some like Jimi Hendrix can improve an already brilliant song, that it should have been avoided. I know the artists agreed to it, but they should never have been given the idea in the first place. And I hope Zach Braff was being ironic/sarcastic/facetious by saying that ANY song by The Shins would change your life. And you can guess how I feel about the use of Nick Drake. The point is he exploited great songs to create moments where there were none, unlike Wes Anderson (who I assume is his idol) who uses songs to compliment moments that could be almost as strong in silence.
7) The hype. This isn't Zach Braff's fault, but the fault of a young (my age cohort) movie-going group that wants badly to like good movies but falls prey to simple clichés and good music (I include Zach Braff in this category). This movie was barely original and if people aren't willing to discuss it in those terms all youth's films will be ripoffs of the Wes's just like the QT's of the mid-nineties.
Scrubs is still awesome and so is Zach Braff on it, I hope his next one is better.