First of all, I would like to express my warmest sycophantic remarks to all the people behind this movie for making it big and for breaching 400 million gross.
Movie producers around the country just love to tag their romantic films as not the typical one; but in the end, the audience feel disgruntled with its tacky plot and character development. However, I can safely say that Star Cinema did not lie to the public when they said that "Starting Over Again" is not your typical love story. It went beyond my expectations as a moviegoer in terms of its plot.
Every sequence in the movie is something you wouldn't expect to happen. The strategies and literary techniques to make the viewers feel more and more engaged with the plot advances were so effective. The movie did a really great job for jumping away from the usual.
However, there are also several negative fallouts for using too much of these cliffhangers. For one thing, the flashbacks that were used to clarify issues in the plot before the movie ended held back the momentum of the movie to build emotions from the audience. Instead of helping the movie achieve sentiments from the audience, the flashbacks did otherwise.
On another side, the storyline ain't typical at all. It was refreshing to the eyes of the moviegoers to finally see something new for a Filipino romantic film. It is also noteworthy to keep in mind the fact that the pair-up of Piolo Pascual and Toni Gonazaga helped a lot in keeping away the clichés of love stories. It was soothing to see a new love team, far from being a mainstream. In fact, this I think is the secret weapon of the movie for making it big.
In terms of technical aspects, the movie needs a lot of improvement, though. The motion picture photography is plainly not good enough. The camera pans were very plain and dull. The camera motion techniques were just minimal and repetitive. The filters for flashbacks were no different from the scenes supposedly shot from the present, making it difficult for the audience to realize if they are watching the present or the past.
The musical scoring was nice. It builds the hype of the audience every now and then. This ain't surprising for a Filipino movie, however, because Filipinos are naturally inclined and talented when it comes to music. Other movie technicalities such as the scenery, sound effects, etc., are also nice.
On this note, I'm proud to give the movie a grade of 7/10.
