Edmundoluk

The movie business is supposed to work like this: you start out working in whatever low budget movies you can get and work your way up. Once you are well-established, you protect your brand name by choosing only good movies to participate in. Eventually your star slowly sinks and you take on any halfway decent role that is offered to you. This all means that, by agreeing to be in this movie, Alec Baldwin and Danny Glover's days of stardom were waning, because they had to have been desperate to take on their roles in this disaster. I would wager that if Baldwin knew that after this movie he would once again find fame and fortune via his recurring role as the Donald in SNL, he would never have taken on this film. Afterall, why trade your dignity and reputation for a paycheck unless you really need the money?

Let's face it, this movie is based on a tried-and-true but tired formula. In a future dystopian society some dictator hosts some kind of win-or-die game to maintain control, and some hero/heroin eventually emerges and wears the mantle of freedom to rally the entire population. Hunger Game and Maze Runner immediately come to mind, but there are a large number of others. Frankly, I am quite tired of these movies of people being treated like mice in an experimental maze. Might as well keep it simple and just make a movie where the people wear mice suits and where they pull the right levers to get food or the wrong levers to get zapped by electrocution. It might actually be more entertaining than this movie.

I won't bother repeating everything that numerous other reviewers have already said about the convoluted plot, bad acting, less than memorable characters, etc, except to say that they are all true. To say this movie is a dud is being charitable.

When the movie finally, and mercifully, lumbered to its end, I was aghast to hear the pronouncement: congratulations, and welcome to level 2. Then they doubled down on the insult by showing Baldwin looking back at you with a smug smile, as in, see ya in the sequel. OMG I sure hope no Hollywood financier is stupid enough to invest money in a sequel, because, dude, you will lose all your investment!

This is hardly a romantic comedy. The comedic part is simply not there - no witty lines, funny subplots, or even any physical comedy. Yes there is the romance - a love triangle. The trouble is, we only root for Dan (the husband) and not for Saz. The main trait of her character is her narcissistic ways. She is flighty, confused, and indecisive. She treated Dan like dirt and blamed their problems on him. Example: she made out with Alex, and eventually slept with him; but when she came back to the house and found another woman in the house with Dan ( all was innocent: she was a coworker staying over for a day), Saz flipped out on them, threw things and walked out. Talk about throwing stone in a glass house. Yes, we all knew that she would get back with Dan in the end, but the whole time I found myself hoping Dan will find someone else, because Saz just does not deserve him. The storyline is pretty straightforward without much texture or subplots. So, the audience is left with watching the movie amble toward the inevitable and undesirable conclusion (that is, Dan took Saz back). I elected to try this movie because I like romantic comedy, and found a movie that's not funny at all, with a romance that I cannot buy into. The only positive I can say is that Michelle Ryan is a looker. Too bad she was cast into such a bad character.