Applesnacks

In his directorial debut "Ten Year", Jamie Linden (writer/producer of "We Are Marshall") introduces us to an extensive cast of characters as they make preparations to attend Howell Secondary School's Ten Year reunion. The film opens with a light and humorous air, as we meet the usual suspects in a film about life post-highschool: The grown up jock (Chris Pratt) who hopes to make amends for swirlies of the past; the nerd who broke out of his shell (Justin Long), made it big in the real world, and plans to conquer women who once spurned him; the rockstar (Oscar Isaac) who never really found happiness in fame; and of course, the one that got away (Rosario Dawson). There are a litany of supporting characters, most of whom contribute not only to making the film genuinely hilarious, but also support the bigger themes at play in a big way.

The film is largely predictable, and the characters all feel like they fit nicely into role's that have been hashed out in films of the past. A film like this lives or dies based on the strength of the script and the actors that bring it to the screen. Thankfully, the performances given by the substantial cast breathe life into the film, and for the most part we're laughing and crying right along with them.

Ultimately, despite being a little tired and predictable, Ten Year feels like a high-school reunion for the cast of a John Hughes movie. If you loved John Hughes' seminal high-school coming-of-age flicks, you should do well with Ten Year - a film aiming to remind us that coming-of-age continues well after graduation.

I usually don't like to comment on films like this. I try not to advise people against watching movies, because maybe someone will like something I didn't and more power to them. But for the average person, i will advise: Don't watch this film. It starts off interestingly enough. Internet cops investigate twisted deviant (and illegal) fetish websites. We're introduced to this world with a reference to that guy from Europe who posted ads up looking for someone to cannibalize him. As our hero witnesses the atrocities he was never prepared for, we're thrown into his personal hell, as his inner demons clash with his own love life. All of his brilliant character development occurs while he's investigating the fat fetish website "feederx". From this point on, the movie tries very hard to present some interesting juxtapositions, forcing us to watch him have rough sex with his girlfriend, inter-spliced with images of some deranged psycho force feeding grotesquely overweight women, as though trying to suggest that we're all predisposed to some fetishes, and maybe we're not so different from the sickos after all. The film asks little more from here, other than some extremely stretched logic (watch our hero brilliantly deduce the passwords for hacking into feederx), and that we don't throw up into our laps while we're watching. This movie was atrocious in ever way: poorly scripted, poorly acted, poorly edited, poorly conceived, and poorly carried out. Minus a million out of 10.