Preamble
C'mon. You knew that I was going to make my way to see this movie. After all, it does feature 2/5 of the NSYNC group and while they are my two least favorite of the group, that's no reason not to see the movie.

For some odd reason, this movie opened up in Indianapolis over two weeks ago. We must be a test market. Who knows.

Bottomline
You know I like to save you time. I went into this movie with huge expectations. I was disappointed. Had I been just a normal, happy go lucky chick who was only a moderate fan of NSYNC, I probably would have not been so bothered by things.

Based upon my bias and some other elements of the film, I'm reluctantly giving this a half-hearted thumbs up (to see in the theater). You could do much worse. But then, you could do much better. See Serendipity - that other Miramax film. :)

The Story
Kevin (Lance Bass) meets a girl (Emmanuelle Chriqui) on a train. Instantly sparks fly but in the tradition of how Kevin handles that next step with women, she slips through his fingers.

In the meantime, Kevin grapples with the back-stabbing, advertising world. Other people take credit for his work. Hmmm, a familiar theme of Kevin not being aggressive enough in his life.

Regretting the fact that he wasn't aggressive, he sets on an advertising campaign to locate the woman who he thinks is his soulmate. Posters are placed all around the Windy city. Hundreds of women respond to his ad, but still not the girl he's looking for.

Throughout the rest of the movie, Kevin attempts to juggle his daunting responsibilities of the work world, with his friends crazy antics, and his own needs.

Of course in the end, you know it all works out because after all, this is a movie produced by Peter Abrams.

Analyze Me Baby
Peter Abrams must be the new kind of "feel-good" productions. He had his fingers in Serendipity, The Wedding Planner, and She's All That. Unfortunately, I'm going to say that this is the weakest of the feel good movies he's been involved in. I'm not sure if he's trying to be the John Hughes for this generation or not. Sorry dude, you're no John Hughes.

This movie is based upon a short film entitled, On The L written by Eric Aronson & Paul Stanton. It's a good concept. Meeting a stranger on the the train who later becomes your soul mate. That's pretty romantic, right?

So, why didn't I like this movie as much as say Serendipity?

First time mainstream director Eric Bross is partly to blame for this film not succeeding as well as it should have. I'll try to keep this list short of what he didn't do well.

Let's start with the interaction with the main characters. The relationships between Kevin and his friends were choppy and disconnected in spots. Of course if I was the director, I probably would have chopped all of his friends out of the scenes period. Most of them were annoying and hardly believable. Or maybe my standards are too high. I would think that men of the age of 24 and up have some semblence of maturity and their lives consist of most than just fart jokes.

In the beginning, Eric did a pretty decent job of weaving in Kevin's worklife to his overall, lack of aggressiveness in his life. Towards the end though, it all unraveled and by some short miracle, every thing worked out. I could have believed that if there was a little more continuity.

I'm going to throw the rest of the blame - and certainly the majority of the blame - on the casting.

While Canadian native Emmanuelle Chriqui certainly turns in a charming performance, not much can be said for her male counterparts.

Lance Bass turned in a mediocre performance. In fact, I wasn't sure where his real life ended and where his character began. He looks pretty dorky in real life and that translated well to the screen. There were times when he was believable as a shy, lacking self-esteem type of guy. There were times when I wanted to shake him.

The most annoying performance of the year goes to Joey Fatone. They should have never casted both him and Lance in this movie. Suggestion: You should have casted someone like a Jeremy Piven or Paul Walker. I saw zero acting in Joey's performance of a hard-rocker wannabe.

The most surprisingly, disappointing appearance of the year goes to Richie Sambora. Now why oh why do we need to make him look like an aging rock star? So he's a little older than 18, and???? Also, I've not seen him act anywhere else, but if this is proof of what he's capable of - well - he should stick to singing with his friend Jon.

So if I have all of these negatives things to say, why in the world would I recommend it?

Alright, true confession...there's some decent chemistry between Lance Bass and Emmanuelle Chriqui. Whenever they're together on the screen, you develop temporary amnesia and forget about the other parts that make you grind your teeth.

Jerry Stiller is wonderful and comforting as Kevin's co-worker/mentor. I've never been a huge fan of his so as a positive, he really did move up on my radar screen through his contribution in this film.

But other than that....the real star of this show was the music. Between Al Green's old hits and a couple of bright new songs by NSYNC, that's what really put me over the edge to recommend this movie (sad but true).

Before you totally slap that NH on me for slamming all over your precious Joey Fatone let me tell you this one outstanding thing he did that blew me away. He performs a song - a solo written by Richard Marx called Ready to Fall. Wow! That was my only blown away moment for Joey. Typically, when I've heard him sing by himself, he tries to overblow his voice and it comes off in a silly, falsetto type of way. Note to Joey: stick with this type of material and you could far.

Watch for the review of the cd soon. That is, as soon as it comes out.

Other Tidbits
* This is the first film for the company, A Happy Place, founded by Lance Bass and Wendy Thorlakson (formerly an executive with Tom Hanks Playtone Company).

* Ananda Lewis makes an appearance which leads me to believe that she's sleeping with someone or something else. How else does one explain how this talentless individual shows up all over the place?

* The most humorous part of this movie is the credits. Justin Timberlake and Chris Kirkpatrick make appearances as the hair and makeup artists. These two are hilarious and I crave to watch them in a film together.


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8