Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
lost interest.
It's easy to see why
Zach Braff would choose another
The Graduate style existential-freak-out movie after the success of
Garden State, but The Last Kiss is pretty much a crapfest, even with Imogen Heap hurriedly thrown onto the soundtrack. It's supposed to be your basic movie about relationships, where we focus on the two main characters wrestling with their issues while all the peripheral characters pop in and out with snippets of their own romantic troubles--which, of course, vary by circumstance, age, etc. The Last Kiss sets up its premise by following this formula religiously, with
Zach Braff as the leading man who's having a "what does it all mean" panic because he's nearing 30 and his girlfriend (
Jacinda Barrett) is having a baby.
The movie succumbs to absolute triteness at every opportunity in its rigorous adherence to this particular page out of the Hollywood cookbook, right down to Braff meeting sunny college girl
Rachel Bilson at a wedding, igniting his quarter-life-crisis-wander-lust as soon as she earnestly places his hand on her heart and delivers the almost impressively unbelievable line "Feel my heart. Feel how fast it is? It's because we don't ever stop to breathe anymore." All the cheesiness would basically be forgivable if this was just your basic popcorn flick, but that's where the first of The Last Kiss's many problems arises. Fluff gets by on charm, but nothing and no one in this movie is consistently charming. The main characters are obscure and distant and their friends are awkward assholes. What's worse is that the way-too-good-for-this-movie
Blythe Danner and
Tom Wilkinson play the parents for the movie's requisite "old people have these problems too" plot device. You'd think that the impeccable screen presences of these two vets would provide some relief from the ensemble's insipidness but honestly, it's just embarrassing to watch them enact over-the-top clichés that are leagues below their abilities.
Probably the worst problem with the movie is its glaring attempt to straddle the line between glossy, romantic drama and raw, gritty examination. After all the film's sappy Hollywood tropes, it's just impossible to accept the film's fairly explicit sex (not that a close-up of
Zach Braff fondling Rachel Bilsen's behind is an otherwise good cinematic experience) and themes that good people can do unforgivable things. By the time the film reaches its climax, Braff and Barrett actually begin to develop enough chemistry to start growing on you, but the context is just too jarring and, sadly for all of us, it's too late to save The Last Kiss from failure. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide