Review of
Serendipity
Reviewed by Young Il Kim
Director: Peter Chelsom
Starring: John Cusack,Kate Beckinsale,Jeremy Piven,Molly Shannon,Eugene Levy
I am just amazed at my ability to appreciate movies when hot chicks are involved. Screw the premise. Screw their acting. I’d rather spend $9.50 in a mindless Pamela Lee flick than a well-acted Kathy Bates one.
I see this trailer. Okay, I like John Cusack. He does the loveable loser thing pretty well. In fact, I think he is Jeyun’s (our director of content) actor, proving that you don’t need to have good taste to work at CampusNut.com. But I was like…yo, yo, yo. Who is that hot chick in the trailer? Of course, I was by myself at the time so I did not get the response. Nor did I get the response when I said that at the theater since I went to see it by myself. My official reasoning is that I’m watching these sappy romcoms for reviews. Real reason is that I’m currently waiting for Kate Beckinsale.
Let me just start by saying that Kate is one hot chick. As an aspiring screenwriter, I decided to alter all my heroines to look like her so that she can get cast. And she’ll be topless throughout the whole movie.
Serendipity is about a chance encounter between Jonathan Trager (Cusack) and Sara Thomas (Beckinsale). They go after the same one pair of cashmere gloves at Bloomingdale’s. Somehow this becomes an evening together. At the end of the date, they decide to leave their next encounter to chance…Well, that’s Kate’s idea. John’s idea to boink her. So she writes her name and number on a book. Little does John know that it’s one of those fake “555” numbers. He writes his name and number on a five dollar bill.
Several years later, Sara Thomas is dating the Ford commercial guy who is a beefed up Yanni. Trager is engaged to one hot chick, at times hotter than you know who. Gee, Trager thinks, I have a Ferrari, but I’d really love to drive an Aston Martin. So he and his best buddy (Piven—he is contractually assigned as Best Buddy in every movie) go on a quest for Sara. And Sara goes on a quest for Jonathan since an Aston Martin has no business with the Ford guy.
That’s the premise. I thought the story was stupid (in hindsight). However, during the movie, I just wanted to see more of Beckinsale, especially the scenes where she’s just wearing a belly shirt and running up and down New York. Heaving, panting…and that was just me. For a date movie, this ain’t so bad. But take that advice with a grain of salt as I was alone in the theater waiting for my own 28 year-old British actress to make a serendipitious entrance into my life.
