Love Don't Cost a Thing

Prior to watching this, I had not seen "Can't Buy Me Love". This is one of those movies that came out while I was still delivering papers, and I didn't see it because I read horrible reviews for it in the paper. I decided to finally watch it, and while the reviews were way too harsh, this is not a great romantic comedy, and it falls flat largely because of Nick Cannons over-the-top and somehow, still wooden at the same time performance. This actually could have been a pretty fun movie with a different leading man. Christina Milian does a good job, and you cannot fault her. It would also help if Cannon and Milian had more onscreen time together, as it is a bit limited. They just never build a really strong connection, and I'm not entirely sure why Milian would be interested in him for real. I actually think it would have been a better movie if Kenan Thompson was the lead, or hell, Kal Penn, and Cannon was one of the sidekicks, he just cannot handle this role at all. He tries, and sometimes it is fun, but it is wildly inconsistent.

Steve Harvey is over-the-top cringe, I really really think someone else should have played his dad. Every scene he is in is painful to watch, his expressions, his vocal tone, everything feels grossly out of place, and he is normally pretty funny.

The movie is filled with some great hip hop and rap music from the early 2000's, and is a blast from the past, the dancing, the clothes, etc. I do love that Alvin is a hardworking intelligent entrepreneur, but again his character is OTT exaggerated by cannon, he comes across less cool than Urkel actually. He does not feel like a real person, but a bizarre caricature.

If you're a teen though, you might still enjoy it, and I did enjoy it at times, even though I am well out of my teens, but I feel as thought this could have been a really good movie, and it was, instead a missed opportunity.

This movie was just okay. Not too sure why they decided to remake this class 80s flick. I still like the original better and Patrick Dempsey made the character much more believable than Nick Cannon can. Loved the scenes of Nick Cannon cleaning the pool and dancing to Michael Jackson. Christina Millian was okay, but the acting was not that great from her. The best actor in the movie were "Alvin"s sidekick friends, Kenan Thompson and Kumar from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. The soundtrack was pretty unremarkable and that was one thing I remembered from the original. It was pack full of classic 80s songs. Overall, the plot was as cheesy as the original and pretty hard to believe. Some of the plot was random, such as Christina's boyfriend being in the NBA and cheating on her. Some lines of dialog directly from the original movie.

Viewers should not be upset with the quality of this tired formula film. It was basically a remake of another tired formula film, "Can't Buy Me Love". If viewers knew their film history they would know to stay clear of sub-par formula films that simply lift plots from even worse sub-par formula films. But Hollywood depends on the stupidity of average viewers who think this is an original and sweet plot about high school fears and wishes to be popular.

Another sad effort for us- the public. The film rates a solid D. Thank you for the time. Off to slice up, or praise another film, maybe a classic like Frankenstein (1932) a Gothic winner!

Ima start by saying i got a guilty pleasure of watching this film just cause it was one of the teen films i grew up watching, i actually took the time to watch the original film starring Patrick Dempsey and i agree the original is so much better, ok guys here's the deal, don't hate too much on the film, it has some good moments in the film, i do enjoy Christina Milian's role but I felt Nick Cannon's role, he just ended up pushing his friends away and having his ego there 90 percent of the time, his character didn't do much and really didn't interact with Milian's character most of the film, i enjoyed the film for what it was, a mindless, dumb, and fun film to see

but it did keep me mildly entertained. A nerd high schooler, Alvin, comes up with the idea of fixing the hotest girl, Paris, in school's car in exchange for her to hang with him for 2 weeks. So, he becomes popular and starts blowing off his old nerd friends. You've seen this plot a thousand times. It had a few humorous moments with Alvins' dad who just wants his son to "score" and stop being a nerd. And Alvins' sister has some funny lines about why he's acting strange. It was a little disappointing to see Alvin treat Paris like crap then of course she realizes she has the hots for him.

One big complaint was that most of the high school kids in this movie looked like they were in there mid-30s, especially Alvin's nerd friends.

FINAL VERDICT: I think it is aimed for a teenage audience, and if you are over 22, I don't recommend it.