Review: Something's Gotta Give

Rated PG-13 | 117 mins

Recently, people have been letting our old pal Jack Nicholson take the easy way out. Between his latest effort Anger Management and this film, one wonders if old age is affecting his ability to choose a good script. Something’s Gotta Give is truly enjoyable for a mere hour and fifteen minutes, but after that, we start to take notice of the terrible dialogue and unfunny script. Now, don’t get me wrong, Something’s Gotta Give offers its fair share of laughs, but they are few and far between. These actors know that they want and deserve better material. Ironically, this movie suffers from the same two problems as Gigli did, but there’s one difference between the two films—the former was panned by the press, while this flick is getting rave reviews.

And this is really the problem. Critics seem to be so star-struck when they see Jack and Diane light up the screen that they automatically decide to give the movie a positive review. However, when the two are working with such a dreadful screenplay, I’d rather see Ben and Jen in their places. The dialogue tacky, the picture is overly long, and only a few of the jokes succeed in being more than just amusing. Watching this terrific cast being force-fed such brain-dead lines in the useless manner of director Nancy Meyers is actually quite painful. Something’s Gotta Give is a teen movie wrapped in pretty paper, so the adult crowd will think of it as a mature comedy. Oh, please. That’s about the last title that comes to my mind when I ponder its mediocrity.

Something’s Gotta Give is sweet enough in its intentions to watch on Saturday morning, but it isn’t a rewarding experience. It’d be a lot easier for me to say that it is, and conform to the ways of my fellow critics that have, but I honestly can’t. I’m sorry, Mr. Nicholson. So sorry you made a shitty film.