LOL.

Onwards with the 2012 movies!

Honestly I went into this with no fucking clue what I was about to subject myself too, something I very rarely do. All I knew was it had Ashley Greene in it and that gives you a fairly good idea as to what you are about to be in for, every film she is in sucks, expect maybe the Twilight franchise but you know, unpopular opinions and all that. I had no hopes anyway, even less knowing she was in it. But I was happy just to see her face, she is lovely. (I hope everyone gets the reason I used the image to the left there - here is a clue, it isn't for the boobs [for once]).

As I began to read up on the film, the horror only grew. It's basically a Miley Cyrus vehicle (then again I already heard she was a bike...badumtish!) about like teenagers growing up and all that shit. But the worst thing is this is a remake of a French film, when has an American Remake of a foreign movie ever been good? And with it being Cyrus centric and...Oh God. It didn't even get a proper release. And of course, the thing bombed, critics hate it...God I am in for such a treat. Hopefully with how shit this is, the review itself will be a treat for the readers. About the only saving grace this thing has, is the writer and director of the original, worked on this one too.

You know though LOL sucks and everything but all things considered, being fair and all that, this could probably have sucked way harder than it already did. So, yay?

I'm proud to not be one of those people who hates on a person just because it's the cool thing to do, but I'm sorry, Cyrus can't act for shit and with such a generic story anyway...just urgh. And I've never even heard her real voice before, can you like cough and blow your nose please? Jesus. She must have false teeth in something, she sounds like her mouth is full of cotton wool, normal people don't sound like this. It doesn't help that the character Cyrus plays is just so completely unlikeable, she is just a brat, a whiny teenager stereotype.

Even actresses I know can act, Greene, Demi Moore, Ashley Hinshaw and so on, the cast is actually pretty decent but they are just so poorly directed and delivering such a badly written screenplay they can do nothing to come across as anything other than shit. And I mean what is Thomas Jane doing here? And what have they done to poor Ashley Greene? She looks like a chocolate fountain that fell in someone's make up bag. Although we do get a close up of her ass, woulda liked to see that on the big screen!

Further still, none of the cast have any chemistry, every scene is just awkward. That is a problem in a film about human emotion. Okay, calm down Locke, be fair, that is what we do here. Okay, the film is cleverly paced, the chemistry is admittedly lacking, but the film makes the relationships make sense within the story itself, so although the actors aren't selling it, the film itself is. Which makes it work on an odd sort of level.

Plus, not everyone sucks, Mr Ross is well written, he is played by Austin Nichols and he puts on a decent performance as a trig teacher who finds himself surrounded by horny schoolgirls who are just doing the class for him - this was pretty funny and his reactions were decent too. Not any of this ever goes anywhere, mind you. And of course Jane is no one new to bad movies, so he puts on an excellent performance, seemingly ignoring the shit that surrounds him - although he is barely in the movie. One of my favourite scenes in the whole thing is when Lola goes to stay with him for a while right toward the end of the movie and I think this is the first time I ever felt anything between two characters and I actually felt something for him too, a character in this film I actually care about! He plays Allen, Lola's father and Anne's ex, a man who spends the movie being used, villainised and then thrown away. The movie never actually makes a thing of it, but there is just this moment, this moment where Allen looks away from Lola and to the side and it is all in his face. Brilliant.

Basically LOL is about Lola whining, I mean there are plots and characters but none of it really goes anywhere, the only consistent thing is her whining to points where I really struggled to work out if the film is supposed to be a parody or not. I mean girls don't really, in utter seriousness, whip out their diaries and write 'My Mum just doesn't get me, I hate my life!'...right? I mean this has to be a joke, right? Those weird sort of imagination sequences, they aren't being played straight faced right? People don't really have fantasies like that...right? And like all the boys are in like a band - and the lead love guy, when he is sad goes home and sings songs about it and like her best friend is the one she loved all along and he just makes her feel so REAL! And...urgh, this is a joke right, please?

Plus, I know these kind of films are usually plotless but normally it is in the characters themselves that keep us watching but with bad acting and zero chemistry it is basically an hour and forty minutes of nothing. The film just goes on and on, it keeps raising something else and I just wanted the damn thing to fucking end. I mean it doesn't help that the existent love plots are just really messy. Lola's Mum keeps bumping into a cop, and is bouncing in and out of a relationship with her ex husband. Lola is falling in love with her best friend but it never comes to fruition and whenever it does it is always broken apart again. One of Lola's friends gets with a guy after she sees his shirt on webcam? Huh what? But err, and so on? Then at the end equilibrium is restored, I mean we never see how or why, everyone just kind of like, 'Guys! It is okay now, yay, happy ending!' and then it ends. The only thing it leaves is a bitter taste of knowing that a lot of what was set up could have provided really great pay off, but nope...we get this. This may be one of the most directionless, boredomfests I have ever sat through.

Look, balanced Locke, say something positive again. Okay, okay. There are moments where this film doesn't feel like it was made by aliens and I could actually relate to it. A big conflict between Lola and her mother is the whole 'bubble' concept parents have made up to get over their jealousy they didn't have iPod's and mobile phones when they were kids. I just want some quality time, Lola's Mum whines, jealous that Lola would rather listen to music and enjoy her own company than be ranted at by her Mum. Why do parents never get this? Egos too big? Another thing I really related too was the French class, the way it was depicted as a big, chaotic mess where no one gave a fuck, guess it is like that in every school. And their 'Paris' trip was almost as shit as mine then again the only 'tapping' I did on my Paris trip was breaking a kids nose, but that is a story for another review. Plus the movie does have a good handle on comedic timing and I did find myself chuckling at a few scenes throughout.

There are also some interesting things at play too, Lisa Azuelos uses the medium of film to really toy and play around with the concept that youths and adults are the same, just different ages. There are moments where the film seems to have been made by aliens who learnt about human beings from American sitcoms but then other moments where the film just really seems to get them, so I can appreciate those moments, at least. It seems odd that a film can get it so wrong and get it so right only at both ends of the extremes and never even comes close to a middle ground. This is especially true of the parents, Lola's Mum is a fairly grounded 'real' parent but all the others seem to take one bad thing about parents, blow it up to a larger size and then shape a character around it. It doesn't work and makes them feel less like characters and more like caricatures. And makes some of the more serious scenes just feel silly.

There are other interesting style choices... that really don't work as well. I get the whole modern generations spend their whole lives online thing, but replacing conversations with Facebook Chat...really isn't the same on a movie. Look at all that acting in that text and smiley face!

You know, honestly, the one thing this movie really made me feel was old. I know I'm only twenty years old and a load of my readers just smashed their keyboards but I mean like...it's hard to believe that the time in my life where I balanced school, with girls and seeing friends is basically over and it was only really once or twice like a movie. You know, the last time I felt that burn the brightest, burn the quickest, teenage passion, was years ago to a girl I'm still not truly over, what a nightmare. That 'teenage love' just starts to happen less and less as you grow up and you find yourself making more and more obvious mistakes and just making do with what you have, sometimes being alone is your best option, trust me. I'm already old enough to have so many more problems than these guys. I kind of wish I was a teenager again, just to have more moments in my life where my only problem was a girl and that felt like the end of the world. I guess one of the most refreshing and at the same time one of the most irritating aspects of this film is this movie has no real conflict, I mean it's played to almost melodramatic levels, but this is a moment in our lives where innocence still exists and is only just starting to fade so it's nice that it means the movie is never truly a bleak one but it doesn't leave me much to interest myself either. Azuelos tries to balance this with plots about the parents and what they have to go through, the 'real world problems' but this is contradicted and undermined by her desperation to make it seem like truly there are no differences between teenagers and adults (the movie actually says this, out loud, 'THEY ARE JUST LIKE TEENAGERS', you could practically hear the cough and feel the nudge), then again that just reminds me exactly why being an adult is so great and why I'm never having children. I mean sure, I have actual worries now I'm an adult, but I'm also my own person - I have no parents telling me what I can and can't do and life is great in that regard.

So do I recommend it? Look right, I don't agree that certain genres of movie should be pigeonholed to a specific age or gender bracket. So I'm not for a second claiming that the high school slice of life genre is for girls, hell this is probably my favourite genre, just look at the sheer number of indie romances I gave positive reviews. But this movie itself, is very, specifically targeted at young girls. And so maybe I just didn't 'get' this film, maybe girls younger than me can appreciate and relate to this movie and enjoy it more. Although even that I'm not sure of, the film has a real obsession with like sex and partying and stuff even though my assumed audience for this was much, much younger than the people who did that but whatever, either way this wasn't made for me and it shows. I found the characters empty, the characters conflicts and problems pathetic (oh my God bad grades, oh my God she deleted me on facebook!), I just couldn't appreciate this. I've seen this film done before and I've seen it done so much better.

Think About It!

-Locke