Monday, June 18, 2012

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

As breaking news reports that a crew of astronauts has been killed in their attempts to detonate a gargantuan meteor plummeting towards earth(see "Armageddon"), the human race prepares for the end of the world, which is to take place in approximately two weeks. A sullen salesman, whose wife has just fled with her lover, sets out to find his high school sweetheart with his dippy neighbor from downstairs tagging along, who hopes to reach her family across the Atlantic Ocean. "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" is an instantly forgettable film, the kind where the lead characters are named Dodge and Penny and the filmmakers seem more concerned with the songs on the soundtrack than they do with anything resembling an engaging story or character development. What begins with dark comedy suddenly turns mushy then maudlin, and never really succeeds at pulling any of them off. Steve Carell is good in a performance he has delivered nearly every single time out and I found Keira Knightley to be her usual lovely self. "Seeking a Friend" is neither a good nor bad film. It just sort of exists, not really establishing itself as anything.