Take Me Home Tonight (2011) review

(3/10)

A coming-of-age party or dreadful and generic comedy? Hint: it's not the first choice!

PLOT:Taking its place during the 1980's, Matt Franklin (Topher Grace) is a graduate of MIT that has decided to work at local Suncoast Video Store in the L.A. mall until he figures out what he wants to do with his life. When he runs into his former high school crush, Tori Frederking (Teresa Palmer), he lies that he's an associate at Goldman Sachs and ends up getting invited to popular guy, Kyle Masterson's party. Franklin goes out later that night with his sister, Wendy (Anna Faris), and his nobody best friend, Barry (Dan Fogler) to get the girl, hopefully find out what he wants to do with his life, and try to let loose and have a great night. It's a basic teen party plot that takes place in the 80's (but only refers to it in visuals and soundtrack) and is executed quite dreadfully.



ACTING:The acting had its ups and downs. Grace did a sloppy job of playing a socially awkward guy. Fogler had his moments, but was mainly dreadful. Faris was also pretty dreadful, and this is coming from one who actually likes her acting. Palmer was decent; you heard the emotion in her voice, but her facial expressions didn't match. Every other performance was either decent or dreadful.

SCORE:The soundtrack is made up of a mix of 80s gems and B-sides as well as a new cover by Atomic Tom. I had to have liked this best about the movie.

OTHER CONTENT:This movie was mainly just another teen party movie that they tried to put in the 80s. It would've been better if they hadn't tried to rip-off other certain movies and if they would've referred to the 80s more actively instead of subtlely (movie titles, soundtrack, fashion). The jokes this tried to pull off as a comedy didn't take either. They just came off as dreadful and awkward. I laughed a total of four times throughout the movie, and I'm easy to laugh at things! There were times where it tried to be a drama with Matt's chasing of Tori and his decision in life, but it also fell flat on its face because of the plot idea being so generically executed. I really wanted to like this, but everything in it just weighed it down for the worse.



OVERALL,a bad movie with a dreadful and generic plot, mainly bad acting, good soundtrack, dreadfully awkward jokes, and generic scenes of drama. The two words that describe this movie: generic and dreadful.