Well...it's official. Juno is the weirdest movie I've ever seen.
That's honestly all I need to write here. This movie is weird. But in a way, the weirdness makes the actual real issues stand out even more. This movie stars a hilariously named teenager named Juno MacGuff (played by Ellen Page) who is impregnated by her friend Paulie Bleeker (played by Michael Cera). Juno doesn't want to get an abortion, but she doesn't want to keep the baby either, so she finds a couple in the newspaper that are looking to adopt a child. Throughout her journey of being pregnant she learns a lot about love and how it sometimes doesn't always workout and that there are hardships. However, this movie wasn't as moving to me as it might be to others.
- I am going to do all my future movie reviews with liked and didn't like structure I used in my "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" review. -
Liked: I liked the humor when it showed up. Some of the jokes were really funny and fit the character very well. I liked Jennifer Garner for being in the movie...not really for her performance just for being there. Jason Bateman's character was pretty likable until he went pedophile towards the end...and um...yea. I appreciated the attempt at conveying a heartfelt story about how love is hard...but it didn't really leave that impression on me.
Didn't Like: Oh boy, here we go. Firstly, I never felt like the acting stood out at all. Ellen Page's voice is annoying and her character's attempts to be funny just came off as plain weird or quirky for the sake of being quirky. The only thing I thought was well executed was the crying scene in the car. Michael Cera is essentially the same character in every movie he's in so that performance just become duller than the last. The best friend character was boring. The dad and step-mom were pretty boring. And that's all on the acting. It was mediocre at best. Some of the scenes were a little too weird to watch. Some examples being Jennifer Garner "talking to her baby" in a public mall, or the fingernails scene, or that scene when Jason Bateman's character started slow-dancing with Juno, and many more. The dialogue annoyed me. It was super campy and felt extremely forced. The line that sticks out like a soar thumb to me is when Juno at one point says "That's totally legit." I cringed upon hearing that line, whether it was the delivery or just the completely forced inclusion of it in the first place. The soundtrack was extremely dull and weird in general. Nonsensical lyrics over somber and somewhat unsettling acoustic plucks played throughout the whole film. The part of the movie where Juno tells Paulie she's in love with him is so out of nowhere. Like, I know she has seen the hardships of the adopting parents and she has interacted with Paulie before but there never really seemed like there was a strong connection present. I know they had sex and everything but this spontaneous affection just felt too out of place.
Juno is a jumbled mess that doesn't really know what it wants to be. The character's and dialogue are so cliched and feel like the writing was a little too forced. This film gets unreal amounts of praise from critics when I only think it's okay. Perks of Being a Wallflower was consistent and the theme was always looming in the back of your mind. Juno just drops the theme for "trying too hard" comedy and boring characters. Granted, some of the scenes were very emotional, but usually were ruined later. The only impression this movie made on me was, "Damn that was a weird movie."
- Eamon
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