How do I hate ye? Let me count the ways:
1. The girlie here is in a witness protection program because she saw her parents shot, and can bring down a crime family in court. She is told not to contact her sole surviving relative, not to speak any Spanish, not to take up any art... basically, sever any contact to her old life at all. Within 30 minutes, she will break ALL these rules.
2. You'd think with their entire business hinging on this little madam, the bad guys would send more than one hit-man to finish her off. But that's what they do. And simply by showering an office worker with praise, he's able to discover virtually everything about her. I don't think its quite so easy in real life...
3. In her 'new life' she finds herself staying with one of those annoying old ladies who tries to be 'hip', and instead coming across like a patronising boor who won't shut up. Unfortunately, the screenwriter mistakenly think this senile old crank is 'charming', so we get lots of scenes of her dishing out homely advice, telling us what's hot and what's not... AARGH!! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!! GOD SAVE ME FROM OLD PEOPLE TRYING TO BE 'COOL' AND 'RELEVANT'!! WHY CAN'T PENSIONERS IN MOVIES ACT LIKE THEIR REAL LIFE COUNTERPARTS, AND GLOWER AT KIDS BEHIND HALF CLOSED CURTAINS, BEFORE RETIRING TO BED WITH A COCKTAIL OF PILLS?! GET A CLUE, MOVIE PRODUCERS!!
4. This old bat's granddaughter is a piece of work too... All throughout the film dressing in dowdy clothes and wearing thick-rimmed specs like a junior Ugly Betty. She tells us she doesn't want to be part of the 'in crowd' hence her choice of attire, little knowing of course that by walking around like that, she's just as much of a stereotype as the jocks and the queen bitches. Speaking of them...
5. The 'Mean Girls' are introduced with as loud, and unsubtle a piece of music as you're ever likely to hear, as they bump into our heroine, before giving her funny looks which make you think "UH OH, THEY'RE GOING TO BE TROUBLE!!" They've got navel-revealing tops on, and it's one bimbo flanked by two dim-witted lackeys. STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE. The bimbo makes a bad joke, her underlings laugh. They pout. They boast. They preen. None of this is done satirically, its all supposed to be their genuine personalities. How insulting to the audience's intelligence.
6. But you ain't seen nothing yet. From the first gaze at her in the classroom, we just KNOW who the love interest is gonna be. Yep, it's another one of those Pretty Boy Douchebags I love to hate, with his perfect teeth and tousled haircut. He's the captain of the (American) football team, is completely full of himself, won't stop asking her out and has no character definition at all other than to be as obnoxious as possible. Why do directors think idiots like this are charming? But OF COURSE she's gonna fall for him, and believe it or not their imbecilic romantic chatter together is the WORST aspect of an already TERRIBLE experience.
7. There's another love prospect on the horizon, in the form of a raven haired dreamer she meets at an art class (Which, in enrolling in she's completely gone against the instructions of her protection officer... but NEVER MIND.) He's seen as someone who can glance beyond her aesthetic qualities... and marvel at her artistic soul. Ah, but this chappie is purely just a RED HERRING. He has no chance against the Pretty Boy Douchebag who's got abs the size of Jupiter, so he might as well retire to his easel and cry into his palette.
8. Did I mention how AWFUL the songs are?! Oh, I must. They're intermingled into nearly every scene, softly-sung guitar strumming crap of the worst kind... filled with pretentious lyrics about love being like an acorn that has to grow, birds with broken wings learning to fly again... DO. ME. A FRICKIN'. FAVOUR. In a leaf taken from the plot, I think I'll hire someone to track down the people responsible for raping my ears. before killing them in a variety of painful ways. No joke.
9. Sorry, I thought this was supposed to be a thriller? Well, guess what... 90% of the length is taken up by kissy-kissy interludes about who our main girl will pick and days out at all-you-can-eat buffets and stargazing, while people we don't care about have lots of mind-numbing conversations about nothing in particular and those AWFUL dirges drone away in the background and OH MY GOD I CAN'T TAKE MUCH OF THIS ("Settle down, we're nearly done... Remember you must WARN THE PEOPLE"...My Inner Self)
10. So, you've probably forgotten about the dude hired by the baddies to KILL KILL KILL this chick. He finally gets her 10 minutes from the end, but ties her to a chair in a nearby hut instead of killing her outright. He starts boasting about his EEVVIILL plan, while she spots a nearby pen. I'm not going to lie... even someone already used to the idiocity of this abysmal piece of trash was completely thrown by how she escapes a TRAINED ASSASSIN with the help of said Biro. It does provide an epic ending to the dismal experience.
I don't normally like waffling on for so long, but once in a blue moon a 'thing' comes along, which embodies EVERYTHING you HATE in a film in SO many different ways, you feel like shouting it from the rooftops. Anyway, I'm done now, so off I go for some therapy and a Double Decker. See ya on the flip side... 1/10
