No Reservations

NO RESERVATIONS (2007) - July 25, 2007
A rote, bland romantic comedy about a no-nonsense chef who is forced to become a surrogate mom for her young niece, and who learns that there's more to life than just working in her restaurant. Yes, it's just as cheesy as it sounds. No... cheesier. It started out inoffensively enough, and I was pretty much enjoying it for the first half or so. But then it seriously started wearing out its welcome. The main problem was that neither of the two main characters were particularly interesting, and pretty much everything that happened to them was completely predictable. And given that the movie wasn't exactly plot-heavy, and entirely revolved around Catherine Zeta-Jones' character, the fact that the character sucked was sort of a deal-killer. It also didn't help that it was blandly directed by Scott Hicks -- bland is just a really good word to describe the whole film, as it felt like everyone involved was just going through the motions. **