Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Gamer, Night of the Living Dead 3D

A competent melding of Charles Dickens and light Matthew McConaughey rom-com, the awkwardly titled Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (there´s only one Ghost of Girlfriends Past, the other two are Present and Future) is proficient if little else. As you might infer from the title, director Mark Waters´ film uses Dickens´ A Christmas Carol as a basis of sorts, and I suspect it´s this storyline that keeps the movie afloat. McConaughey stars as womanizing fashion photographer Connor Mead, kind of a US version of Alfie – though McConaughey is no Michael Caine (or Jude Law, for that matter), and the character, as written, is so explicitly misogynistic and unappealing I can´t imagine what all these women see in him. In one of the opening scenes, he dumps three women simultaneously via teleconference, and then jumps back in bed with his current date, who is all-too-eager to continue despite witnessing the whole thing. Uh-huh. Moving on: he shows up for his brother´s wedding rehearsal, just in time to plead with Paul (Breckin Meyer) to think things over, and gives a big ‘love isn´t real´ anti-marriage speech at the rehearsal dinner. The wedding is being held at the deceased Uncle Wayne´s estate; Wayne (Michael Douglas) shows up as a ghost and tells Connor that he´ll be visited by three more, etc. We all know where this is going, right? As is later revealed via flashbacks, it was Wayne who raised nephew Connor to become a playboy after both his parents were killed in a car accident. First up is the Ghost of Girlfriends Past (Emma Stone), who transports Connor back to the time that he was a sweet young kid in love with best friend Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner). Coincidentally, Jenny also happens to be the Maid of Honor at his brother´s wedding; I wonder if…? Strangely, these flashback scenes are filmed awkwardly, so that Connor and the ghost are usually never in the same frame as inhabitants of the flashbacks; it´s almost as if it was conceived as a straight flashback, and then the ghost stuff was added later. While I´m sure that´s not the case, it´s a strange and distracting technique; usually you´ll see the Scrooge character try to physically prevent his younger self from making the wrong decision; here, Connor just watches from the sidelines and makes snide comments. Bizarre. The Ghosts of Girlfriends Present and Future show up (briefly – those flashbacks ate up a lot of screentime) and show Connor how he affects those around him and how lonely his life will turn out. And the film resolves itself exactly as you would expect. Though there´s a scene halfway through where Connor accidentally ruins the wedding cake that struck me as entirely pointless; he´s already done enough to put the wedding in jeopardy, why accidentally add more? McConaughey and Garner have zero chemistry together. There´s some sweetness between the young actors who play the characters at various ages, but then a big void between the adults. I don´t mean to accidentally praise the Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson rom-coms, but at least those two felt like they deserved each other. Douglas seems to be playing famed producer Robert Evans circa The Kid Stays in the Picture, and he´s clearly having fun; his scenes are the best in the movie. Robert Forster is also amusing as the father of the bride (and the minister). While I didn´t really buy Connor´s character arc – either from sweet young kid to Matthew McConaughey, or womanizing McConaughey to anything else – Dickens´ underlying story is so solid that it keeps the film watchable. McConaughey and/or rom-com fans should enjoy.

The two underlying ideas are solid. First we have a vision of the not-too-distant future: Bill Gates-like software billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) has created a mixture of reality and online worlds: in a ‘game´ called Society, online participants control real-life actors/avatars through implants in their brains. Morbidly obese Gorge (Ramsey Moore) controls pretty Angie (Amber Valletta) in this manner, dressing her up in skimpy outfits, taking her to raves, hooking her up with characters called Rick Rape. Angie took this gig because she needs the money, trying to regain custody of her young daughter.

Next there´s the old Running Man/Death Race plot. Another of Castle´s creations is the game Slayers, in which players control death row inmates who battle each other in a war-like video game simulation. If they win 30 rounds, they´re freed from prison; good for Angie´s husband Kable (Gerard Butler) who is controlled in the game by young Simon (Logan Lerman) and has survived 28 rounds so far. This is nothing new – and the worldwide crowds cheering on the action feel particularly repetitive – but it´s usually entertaining.

This is something many of today´s filmmakers tend to ignore – audiences, they think, don´t need to understand what´s going on, as long as they can feel it – and Neveldine & Taylor are the epitome of this mindset. In the Crank movies, the rat-a-tat action came in short bursts; in Gamer, nearly half of the film seems to take place in the Slayers game, and you will have no idea what is going on during these scenes: who is shooting who, who lives and who dies, what or where the goal is. It´s a deafening bore sitting there in the cinema amidst explosions on the screen and gunfire through the speakers, and the least-involving moviegoing experience imaginable.

George A. Romero´s original Night of the Living Dead has famously fallen into public domain purgatory after (supposedly) his distributers failed to place a copyright on the film upon release (copyright laws in 1968, apparently, weren´t quite what they are today). This has lead to, seemingly, hundreds of home video versions of the film on the market, including colorized versions, a cheapie 3D conversion, and even a notorious 30th anniversary edition which spiced in some terrible newly-shot footage.