Endless Love Review
I hate myself for not hating this movie more.
Don’t get me wrong. I did hate this film. It is everything that is wrong in Hollywood today; a cliched, hackneyed low budget remake of an even crappier movie designed to just suck up enough cash from lonely romantic losers, foreign dopes, and hapless film critics who don’t warrant free movie tickets to cover its production costs plus coffee money (Budget: $20,000,000. Gross sales to date: $20,460,285. Mission accomplished I’d say). There is every reason for me to push it out of the car at 80mph onto an embankment that is currently covered with cactus.
And for most of the first half I was revving my engine and disabling my passenger seat belt latch in anticipation of doing exactly that. The characters were so bizarre they might have been written by aliens from another dimension who had only learned about humans by reading the online journals of teenage girls. The story was cheesier than a mozzarella asteroid big enough to destroy the planet (blue collar guy falls in love with upper class girl only to have trouble with her snooty father? Come on.). They had mid 20 year olds playing high school students. This film was another one filmed on the surface of the universe of HG Wells The Time Machine with only beautiful Eloi actors (obviously the Morlocks were all off camera collecting garbage, living in sewers, and writing movie reviews. As an aside to the producers of this film one or two actors with more “challenging” looks will actually make your good looking actors look better). A fairy tale romance that even a fairy tale wouldn’t touch. All that plus a title that even now has the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie song playing in my head over and over again like the elevator music for my descent into Hell.
Yet as the movie progressed I noticed something weird. I found myself rooting for the couple and hoping they ended up together. Normally when confronted with such cheesy romance I am hoping most of the main characters die in a fire, but there was something going on here. Maybe the two characters had actual chemistry. Maybe the dad was such a dick that I wanted to see him get his comeuppance. Maybe I saw this movie a week after the worst holiday of the year, Valentine’s Day, and the weight of my own aching loneliness was weighing heavier on my soul. Regardless of the reason as the film progressed to its painfully predictable ending instead of wanting to murder the projectionist I felt an odd sense of satisfaction.
That sense of satisfaction aside the movie is absolute sh%t. It starts off with pretty boy David Elliot (Alex Pettyfer-I am Number Four,Beastly, Magic Mike) and sidekick Mace (Dayo Okeniya-the Hunger Games, Runner Runner, The Spectacular Now) graduating high school along with the supposed love of David’s life Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde-Carrie, The Three Musketeers, St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold). In spite of being the most gorgeous girl in a school of gorgeous girls Jade is weirdly unpopular and never talks to anyone. She is still morning the death of her older brother or something but this part of the movie seemed really fake. No one is that good looking and not popular.
Anyway, somehow Jade is so unpopular that no one signs her yearbook. Later she and her father Hugh (Bruce Greenwood-I Robot, Star Trek into Darkness, Deja Vu), mother Anna (Joely Richardson-the Patriot, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Event Horizon (for the record I think Event Horizon is one of the scariest films I have ever seen)), and brother Kieth (Rhys Wakefield-the Purge, Sanctum, the Black Balloon) arrive at their snooty country club where David and Mace work as valets. A guy is a total jerk so David and Mace steal the car and bring Jade along.
Jade is having a party to celebrate graduating and is surprised when the most unpopular girl in the school has no one show up. David shows up and sabotages his ex girlfriends party so hundreds of kids show up at Jade’s (nothing like a high school party run by and officiated by the uptight father). They end up in the closet and Hugh catches them.
At that point the two are super in love based on the fact that…I don’t know. They are both good looking I guess? Maybe it’s this mysterious thing known as chemistry but I can tell you I took two years of high school and three years of college chemistry (long story) and still don’t know what that is about. Anyway, Hugh wants to throw David out on his ass but David proclaims his honorable intentions.
If any of this seems remotely familiar feel free to skip ahead a few paragraphs. Jade and David embark on a whirlwind romance while Hugh hawks from the side. Jade gives up a great internship to stay around during the summer. Hugh drags her and the rest of the family to their palatial lake house and David shows up and stays as well. Hugh demonstrates his amazing and trust worthy parenting skills by having David investigated by the local police and discovers that David has had some trouble in the past (aren’t juvenile records sealed when you turn 18? Oh well). Mace gets David and the whole crew into trouble and David sacrifices himself to keep Jade out of trouble. Hugh rewards him by getting David to punch him out and gets a restraining order on him by pulling a favor from his good buddy the rich judge (isn’t justice in America awesome?).
Look, I’m getting really bored of this recap. Sorry. David and Jade break up and she goes off to collage. They both are miserable and eventually find a way to get back together after Jades house burns down. The end.
The stars.
Sigh. I guess Jade and all the other girls were super hot, as long as PG-13 action turns you on. One star. Umm. I guess just that weird satisfied feeling I felt at the end. One star. Total: two stars.
The black holes.
If you have even the slightest allergy to cheese or dairy products this film will put you in your grave. One black hole. Adults playing teenagers and acting like high school was remotely cool. One black hole. The characters were all a little surreal in their motivation. One black hole. 
Every bit of conflict could have been resolved with about 10 minutes of discussion between Jade and David, or just by getting rid of high school buddy Mace (Wingman image courtesy of the cheap t shirt category). One black hole. The whole super hot/anti social nerdy girl thing felt incredibly lame and fake. One black hole. Hugh’s character was so laughably overprotective as daddy that you couldn’t possibly take him seriously. One black hole. The pacing was drag-tastic. One black hole. Very, very predicable. If you have ever read any teen romance novel you knew exactly where this was going from the first scene. One black hole. In general a waste of 104 minutes. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
A grand total of seven black holes. Pretty poor, and honestly if I were right in the head it would have gotten a lot more black holes. In spite of everything I did feel something other than boredom from this film. Should you see it? If it’s on Netflix and you are at home on your couch with your girlfriend and/or a bong full of medicinal marijuana sure. Don’t waste your time and money in the theater. Date movie? Duh. Bathroom break? No scene stands out as being worthy of holding your bladder for so feel free to bail out at any time.
Thanks for reading. When I look at my movie options this weekend I say “Oh, God” literally (haw!) but think I will see the new Liam Neeson film tonight. What’s that you say? It was directed by a foreign guy who has done absolutely nothing I’ve ever heard of before? Well sign me up! Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu to keep up on all my posts, and if you liked this review be sure to like us on Facebook. If you have a comment on this film or my review feel free to leave it here, and off topic questions and comments can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
P.S. Out of morbid curiosity I just looked up the writer/director of this film Shana Feste on IMDB. She has done nothing really of note (aside from a movie called The Greatest. I find that really funny. She literally made The Greatest Movie) but I just realized she is super hot. Shana, if you would like to discuss in detail my issues with this dross I will let you buy me dinner. Be aware that as a rule I generally don’t kiss on a first date unless you are remotely willing.
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