Not as advertised, I want my money back. NOW!

Rating: 1/10 (16 August 2004)

"Garden State" takes bandwagon to a whole another level. This movie is the biggest disappointment of the year. 'Garden State" is crappy in so many ways that I don't even know where to start. The trailer I saw in March was ten thousand times better than this pathetic dribble pawned off as a movie. Like, seriously, do you think Braff had enough clichéd characters? Oh, and not to mention the in your face symbolism...how dumb did he expect his audience to be? I got it during the "we get high together" mother/son scene, Andrew craved a loving family...the Noah's Ark family was so not needed.
The writing reeked, I felt like I was in my Fiction Writing 101 class. Braff forces the story along; there was nothing natural about it, especially, the "pause" dramatic moments. Sam was annoying as hell, with the "I'm going to be cute until you smile" shtick. And the supposed romantic connection between Andrew and Sam was as sparkly as a flat line. "Garden State" was all over the place, by the end of the movie, I felt like I was doped up on lithium all my life. This is the only explanation I can think of for wasting over an hour of my precious life.