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Last Holiday doesn't do anything overly bad. It isn't
a hack remake, by any stretch of the imagination (actually,
I don't even know if you can call it a remake when you change
the title character from a white man to a black woman) but
it doesn't go where the story should naturally take it.
Instead, it calls for the unholy "plot hammer" to save itself
from having to make a hard decision for the viewers and
letting everybody go home feeling good about themselves.
***
Last Holiday makes the grade as a passable date movie
and it's the type of film that you might recommend to your
mother but it doesn't feel or come off as anything more
than your average romantic comedy/drama that has a good
hook but fails to live up to being the big catch. ***
Queen Latifah continues capitalizing on her good name
(which hasn't been all that good since Chicago), in another
sub par effort, as she aimlessly walks through the title
role of Georgia Bryd. Ms. Bryd, as most people call her,
sells cookware at Kragen's and is the stores best employee.
Latifah, even sleepwalking through the role, has a natural
charisma about her that makes it easy to buy into everyone
liking her. She dreams big but her situation doesn't allow
her to take chances. ***
She has a huge crush on her co-worker Sean (LL Cool
J) but won't do anything about it but mope around that it's
a "possibility" not a reality. Things get interesting when
she bumps her head and has to have a CAT Scan. The scan
reveals that Georgia has a rare disease called Lampington's,
which gives her only about three weeks to live. ***
After suffering a normal '"I'm about to die" breakdown,
she cashes in all her bonds, quits her job in a humorous
scene with her boss Adamian (Matt Ross) and flies to the
one place she's always dreamed of going, Karlovy Vary in
the Czech Republic. Once there, she transforms the staff,
who fall in love with her giving and loving nature. She's
worked in the service industry for ten years, so she knows
what it's like to put up with rich snobs like Matthew Craggon
(Timothy Hutton) who own the giant retail chain that Georgia
used to work at. ***
Craggon and his table of important guests, such as
Senator Dillings (Giancarlo Esposito) are marveled by this
obviously rich woman who is receiving the affections of
the world famous Chef Didier (Gerard Depardieu). She wins
them over, never telling them who she really is (they never
ask, to be fair) and the plot spirals on as Georgia walks
towards her eventual death. ***
But maybe I'm being too hard with my criticism of the
story and how it plays out. If someone was to stop me in
the street and explain to me that they loved Last Holiday
because Latifah won them over with her sweet nature or liked
the story because everything worked out for everybody or
even liked it because of the humorous moments that happen
in the spa, when Georgia is trying out all the different,
European treatments that this high scale resort offer, I
wouldn't blame them. I mean, even I enjoyed those aspects
of the film. ***
What I wanted out of this film was for it to go somewhere
a bit different. I wanted it to go through with the eventual
death of Georgia. Yes, it would be crushingly sad, that
woman who lived life in a subdued manner finally experienced
what life was all about and didn't want to lose it but it
would be poignant. If I'm spoiling something for you, than
this is the perfect movie for you, you haven't seen enough
of them like this. ***
Last Holiday would offer a comedy, a romance and drama
that often to not come along, one that has meaning. There
might be a life lesson to get out of this film made of fluff
if it hadn't of taken the easy way out. You can't always
blame a filmmaker for going with the conventional but you
can question it and see how much more powerful this film
would have been with a heartbreaking ending. ***
Director Wayne Wang (Joy Luck Club, Maid in Manhattan)
knows how to do a romantic movie, he's done them before
and this probably won't be his last and he showcases the
resort with an eye for the extravagant. He holds the ship
steady as it goes over charted waters but gives the film
enough zing that it holds up, even for members of the audience,
like myself, who smelled, even if for only a moment, that
Last Holiday could have been daring and different. ***
Last Holiday might not be what I wanted it to be but
it is a crowd pleasing film that is filled with funny performances
and the classic Hollywood ending. There are a lot of serious
and challenging movies out there. This isn't one of them
but if you're looking for a break, for something that might
tug at the heart for a moment and then leave you feeling
happy, you might want to check into your Last Holiday. ***
Image and Sound:
A great transfer combined with a surprisingly heavy
LFE soundtrack make this an enjoyable experience when watching
the DVD. Not a lot of artifacts or grainy moments and the
soundtrack seems a lot more boisterous than I remember in
theatres. On the packaging side of things, Paramount is
still using those lame cases that you have to snap open
(Aeon Flux, their last release, also had this sort of case).
Drop these lame cases guy’s. ***
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