Kinda Review: When i Met U (2009)

I guess the movie is really called, "And it all began...When i met u," because that's what appears in the opening credit. When a movie title is the entire line of a song, you half expect it to be derivative.

But not this derivative. It begins with a familiar twist---"Six Days, Seven Nights" comes to mind though I wish it wouldn't---and ends with a "Bridges of Madison County" moment, that bit in the passenger seat. The middle is so generic that no amount of beauty shots can keep my interest.

First off, utter miscast. Richard Guiterrez has turned out to be a competent actor but can't seem to shed off his poster-boy gait to truly become the working-class carrier pilot who is burdened with a father who gambles. KC Concepcion is the movie's joie de vivre, easily lighting up the screen with her breezy casualness and open face. Though likable in her role as a food court promodizer, Concepcion is too refined in gesture and speech to be jologs. Hindi niya talaga keri. And it does get in the way of believability. The actors are just too far removed from the material being more bourgeois than the bourgeois.

Another complaint, which is not solely found in this movie, is the continued demonizing of the affluent and the educated. It's one of the trappings that our commercial movies (and soap operas but that's more of a universal theme) can't seem to shake loose or can't seem to offer a different point of view to.

But what really sinks this dull romantic comedy is Joel Lamangan's direction or lack thereof. Static. Derivative. Lazy. There's no spark in the romance; no timing in the comedy.

Watch if you're a fan of the loveteam. Otherwise, you can has headache.