  | The Bachelor
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Average user rating:  | ||||||
| Flawed, but still good | ||||||
| I don't see why, when people see a film based on a really, really old Buster Keaton silent movie Seven Chances (1925), they instantly hate the up-to-date remake. It's never going to an Oscar winning movie, but lets face it, not many movies I watch (!) are.
OK, my first quibble is the horrible, horrible, region 1 cover, which you can see on the main page for this DVD. Chris O'Donnell looks positively ancient on it. The region 2 cover looks so much better. Is that a grey hair I see? Also Renee Zellweger obviously doesn't have the standing in Hollywood today to have someone do her hair for her. The poodle perm is so not a good look. Look out for Brooke Shields, as an ex of Jimmy's, and also Mariah Carey, playing a very diva-ish (opera) singer. That must have been hard for her to play. She also plays an ex of Jimmy's. The best scenes in the whole movie have to be towards the end, when Jimmy's $100 million, gimme a bride newspaper advert appears. Literally thousands of brides appear and chase him, and several of them are actually guys in drag. I would not have liked to see the dry cleaning bill after all those ladies (and gents) were finished with them! The worst bits about this movie was the horrendous cliche about men being unable to commit, and giving up their 'bachelorhood' and no longer being able to sew their wild oats as the saying goes. Men are horribly portrayed in this, including an old geezer trying to give Jimmy his 15-year-old daughter as a bride. Women are also horrifically portrayed; when all the brides gathered, none of them are "classically" attractive. They were all nearly ugly, old, butch, fat, you name it, all of womankind's flaws were represented. And to make it even worse, some of them were MEN!!! Not many people will agree with my review, so bring on the bad votes guys, cos I'm ready for it. So there. It's not an Oscar winning movie. But it's good to waste an hour or two. Now go vote for my Pearl Harbor review please. | ||||||
 Formula Romantic Comedy with some twists | ||||||
| Years before ABC started their own "Reality TV show" about a Bachelor having to choose from a group of marriage-minded women, there was this film, which I didn't see until just recently. Like most romantic comedies, it follows the same formula of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and boy grovels to win back girl and they marry and live happily ever after. Pretty standard, unoriginal, and uninspired...and this film starts off that way and doesn't really take off until the bachelor (played by Chris O'Donnell) views a video will of his grandfather. Therein lies the premise...The bachelor is the last of his friends to get married, and his grandfather wants to ensure that his genetic line doesn't die off if his grandson doesn't do his manly duty: matrimony and parenthood. But the grandfather dies and makes a condition on the inheritence (shades of "Brewster's Millions"--which is thankfully mentioned in this film)...the bachelor will inherit $100 million only if he marries before he turns 30 years old to the exact minute of his birth. And, the marriage has to last at least ten years and produce offspring before he will get to see the money. Since the bachelor turns 30 a week later, he begins calling his exs in desperate attempt to find a bride, since the love of his life was insulted by his non-proposal earlier (instead of "will you marry me?" he states his case pro and con regarding marriage and tells Renee Zellweger "you win!").
I loved the surprise cameos of his exs, which I won't reveal here so first time viewers can be surprised themselves. They cameos of some famous ladies were a nice touch to lift this film out of the standard cliches of the romantic comedy genre. What clinches this movie for me, in terms of originality and humor is the running of the brides through the streets of San Francisco. Its completely zany and unbelievable, but romantic comedies do have quirks like these to stand out above the rest. The scene is just so outlandishly funny and well done that I thought it saved the movie as a whole. Its reminiscent of "the running of the bulls" in Pamplona, Spain...and considering that Chris O'Donnell played Ernest Hemingway in "In Love and War", I thought that was a nice touch. There is one major discrepancy with this film. The brides chasing the groom begins at the Amtrak station and its not long until they are running the streets of San Francisco (North Beach?)...yet that is a near impossibility. The Amtrak station is actually across the bay in Emeryville, not San Francisco...so anyone who has been there knows that the makers of this film used a lot of creative license to make the climatic scene flow. Overall, an amusing film, though by no means a great one. It is entertaining and takes some well deserved pokes at the expectations that both men and women have regarding marriage (loss of freedom for men, fairy-tale fantasy for women, as one amazon reviewer pointed out). See it for what it is...good for a few laughs. | ||||||
| 50'000 brides can't be wrong | ||||||
| Synopsis: Jimmie Shannon (Chris O'Donnell), an unabashed bachelor asks his girlfriend Anne (Renee Zellweger) to marry him. But his uncertainty about the change in lifestyle causes him to botch the proposal so badly that she refuses. Soon after, his grandfather dies leaving him 100 million dollars in assets, with one catch. Jimmy must be married by his 30th birthday or he won't get a cent. The bad news is, his 30th birthday is in 24 hours. From there begins a rush against time, first to find his girlfriend and try to change her mind, and then when that fails to find any eligible woman who will agree to marry him on short notice. Will Jimmie realize that he wants to get married after all, and will he get the girl he actually loves? About the Movie: One of the most refreshing things I found in this movie was the positive view that was eventually given to marriage. O'Donnel's character goes from a single man who enjoys his single and somewhat philanderous lifestyle to a man who understands the joy of committing heart, soul and body to another person. He comes to realize that some things in life are more important than money or sex. The neatest part about all this is how he comes to this realization. It comes partly through his attempts to find a wife on short notice, but mostly it comes in the voice of a role model that is almost universally denigrated in movies these days... a priest. I found that to be a nice change. Plotwise, this film is standard romantic comedy material. Boy loses girl, boy seeks girl, girl makes things difficult, boy gets girl. What makes this movie special is the offbeat way the whole situation is presented and eventually resolved. It's just plain fun, especially that memorable chase scene near the end. The supporting cast (which includes Hal Holbrook, Artie Lang, James Cromwell and Edward Asner) is excellent in this film, though at times a little overplayed. James Cromwell's priest is downright charming and O'Donnell plays his role as the uncertain bachelor rather convincingly. Together with the rest of the cast they make for some great and entertaining comedic moments that are laugh out loud funny. The only really low spot as far as acting goes is Anne. Renee Zellweger is ok in her role as Anne, but as an actress, I feel she has a tendency to come off as a ditzy blond. Her character suffered a little from that, making her, at least for me, a lot less appealing as the female lead than she could have been. Like many comedies these days, the Bachelor also suffers from the sex syndrome so prevalent in modern movies. Jimmie has clearly slept around a lot in the past, and it's implied that he and Anne are 'intimate.' Just once I'd like to see a romantic comedy without any sex involved, with a guy who's saving himself for the one he wants to spend his life with. I guess that's too much to hope for. But, I suppose in this movie, the lifestyle fits why he's not so eager to abandon it. The other issue with this film is the language. The language in The Bachelor is often unnecessarily crude (usually sexual references or unfortunate potty colloquialisms) pushing the rating up to PG-13. It could have been a better, more family friendly film had they kept some of the language a little tamer and less earthy. It hurt the movie, and it didn't have to. In the end, some of this film is a little clichéd, but overall it holds together pretty well, and makes the payoff at the end definitely worth it. Over all, the Bachelor is a fairly entertaining movie that makes a great date film (if you can overlook the language). About the DVD: The picture on this DVD is exceptionally clean, even on high resolution screens. This is what DVDs are supposed to look like. The sound is decent, though nothing that will knock you out of your seat. The special features on this DVD are what you normally see on budget DVD releases, the theatrical trailer for the movie and a cast filmography section. This DVD release has the added bonus, however, of being a PC DVD-ROM with extra features when played on a computer. These include a script to screen feature, access to the original theatrical website and a links to wedding resources. I've always found the script to screen feature on DVD's to be fascinating. While it's really only any interest to those who enjoy the finer points of film making, it's interesting to read the script while the movie plays. I do have a complaint however. The Script to screen feature forces you to watch the movie in fullscreen while reading the script. As a fan of widescreen, I found that restriction a little annoying. Bottom Line: A fun film with some flaws on a budget DVD release with one significant extra. I'd give it 3 Stars. | ||||||
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