The Last Song

There are movies which I can take one look at and instantly know it's going to be bad (years of training...even I admit it's creepy that I can take one look at a movie and know if it's going to be good or not). I knew The Last Song was going to be pretty bad. So why would I possibly want to watch it? To keep myself from becoming a film snob, I watch the bad movies, mainly for their entertainment factor. But The Last Song is by far one of the stupidest movies I have ever seen. Not stupid as in the bad kind of stupid. Stupid as in the brainless kind of stupid.

Ronnie (Miley Cyrus) is a teenager who is shipped off to live with her father (Greg Kinnear) for the summer. She hasn't seem him in a while, and he is desperate to fix their broken relationship. But Ronnie doesn't seem interested in doing that. However, she does meet a guy, Will (Liam Hemsworth, Cyrus's real life boyfriend), who she instantly falls in love with. With everything going right, something is bound to go wrong soon.

Okay, I'm not a huge Miley Cyrus fan so of course I wasn't going to like this movie. But she, surprisingly, wasn't the worst thing about this movie. Sure, she was totally miscast in the role of a rebel, and seemed to walk around this movie with a pouty and grumpy face, not doing much. However, the biggest crime this film commits is the fact that Greg Kinnear is in it. I love Greg Kinnear. To me, he is a lot like Aaron Eckhart: an underrated actor who absolutely shone in a really big movie (Eckhart-The Dark Knight, Kinnear-Little Miss Sunshine), but has gone by unnoticed, and continues to star in movies way beneath his talents. The Last Song underutilised Kinnear in every possible way. He was fantastic in the role of the father, and singlehandedly lifted this movie to the point where it was actually worth watching.

I will admit that I found myself enjoying parts of this movie. Parts which were too few and very far between. I'm sure it really meant well, because it does have some very good points. But I have seen this storyline so many times before. At the end, I couldn't cry. I was just glad it was over. The fact that it is a Nicholas Sparks adaption makes it even worse. I have vowed to never, ever, in my life, even look at a Nicholas Sparks novel. Because it's bad enough watching his adaptions like The Last Song, The Notebook and Nights in Rodanthe. Way too romantic even for my standards.

What I'd like to say is this: it's not a must avoid. There will be some people who will totally eat this up. I'm just not one of those people.

2/10