This Time Around

It's Christmas Eve and everything here in Finland has been closed at midday. So we all have to stay indoors and watch, for example, this movie. Since I was not at my own home when this started, I didn't change the channel. I might not have changed it even at my own home since pretty much every channel was airing some sort of "family" movies in the afternoon.

So, I watched this and then came to IMDb, only to be surprised how many comments (18 before me) it had. I read them all. Half of the seemed to be written by members of the Brian Austin Green Fan Club and not surprisingly those comments had a rating way above the 6.1/10 average this movie has at the time of writing. Also, many comments used the words "adorable" and "cute", somehow mistaking their meaning with "great". Sorry but this is not a great movie.

I won't bother with spoilers since there are none in this movie. This is one of those "13 fits in a dozen" rom-coms where, as one user put it simply: "you know exactly what will happen". This isn't the first time this exact plot has been used. And by "exact plot" I mean the *plot*, not the script. Sure, the setting, dialog and some scenes may be different than in the previous or following iterations of this plot, but the *core* has been used before. Calling this movie "innovative" is an insult to the viewer's intelligence.

The actors (other than the feverishly worshiped B.A. Green) aren't given anything challenging. The fact that two of them used to be in "Popular" (a good series) does not make this movie special. There is only one performance that rises above the average and that is, not surprisingly, that of Sara Rue. Since the rest of the cast are nobodies, I'll comment on the three leads.

Carly Pope: She got me in "Popular". After that show ended, I was sad when she seemed to vanish. Looking at her CV, she actually kinda did. I have seen none of her work between "Popular" and "This Time Around". Past this, I've seen her guest star in "Tru Calling" (1 episode), "Dirt" (6 episodes), "The 4400" (1 ep), "Californication" (2 eps) and "24" (5 eps + the TV movie). It seems she just can't land a regular cast-member status and that surprises me not. Ten years ago her looks were enough for me, but by now I (and probably the casting people) have seen that she really has very little talent.

B.A.G.: His character actually grew in "Beverly Hills, 90210" and he was talented enough (he's not exactly Daniel Day Lewis, is he?) to make the most of it, meaning that when that show was *finally* put out of its misery, he still had good chances at finding a new job. And look at his CV: he already had done ten roles before his first BH2010 episode aired on 4 October 1990. And at the time of writing, he's done just over 40 roles during or after BH90210. That includes a regular cast-member status in four series. Even the end of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" hasn't left him out of work. That's because he's talented.

Sarah Rue: Back in 1999, you'd have thought that Lesley Bibb, Carly Pope, Tamara Mello and Christopher Gorham would have a great career in front of them. Well, it turns out Bibb too had only her looks (which I did not find appealing) to fall upon, while (the extremely cute) Mello mysteriously vanished and only Gorham made a career for himself. And then there was this kinda plump girl, who surely was destined to be restricted to side roles for the rest of her career. But... Rue (who is really beautiful when her face lightens up the screen) surprised us with her talent. During or after "Popular", she's been in twenty projects, including hit movies like Pearl Harbor, The Ring and a regular cast-member status in two series, while also guest starring in others. That's because she is talented.

Two talented actors can't save a movie with recycled script, bland cinematography, annoying editing - pointless "flashy" speed-ups and crash zooms, childish time-lapse photography and most grating of all, totally superfluous (except for one scene) use of split-screen. And don't even get me started on how generic and uninspired the use of music was.

Bottom line: this is something that you can safely watch while doing something else, since should you miss something, the chances are, you've seen it in some other similar movie and therefore know what you missed. Or rather, was spared from.

As we think back on our junior high and high school days we can all usually remember something traumatic that we went through. How many times have we thought, if we could just go back and change that day. Well, that's where this movie takes you. Carly Pope (Mel) is so adorable in her role and I thought Brian Austin Green (Drew) was just as adorable. When Drew is finally face to face with Mel, knowing who she really is, he handles it so well. Good family movie.

This Time around is your standard tv movie fare which is always fun when you're in the mood for it. The previews aired on ABC Family all weekend long back to back and made the movie look really cute. Carly Pope plays a girl who as a eighth grader was a dead ringer for Heather Matarazzo in "Welcome to the dollhouse" (thats not a good thing). She grows up to be cute and runs into the boy who made her life awful in junior high. She and her best friend played by the highlight of the film, funny Sara Rue, decide to make him fall in love and then dump him. If you've ever seen a movie before in your life you know exactly what will happen. This was cute but not nearly as good as it could have been. A very interesting concept that could easily be adapted to the big screen. Watch it when its on television but don't bother recording it. 3/10

Although it's been described as fluff, I enjoyed the characters in this movie, and found it amusing and touching. I especially appreciated the editorial, post-production devices used to move story along, and the sound design used to support transitions from scene-to-scene.

The actors are wonderful, everything is great about this movie, so for a movie on ABC Family, it's pretty wonderful and better than other ABC Family original movies. Carly Pope and Brian Austin Green are attractive and have talent. This movie is not really the average romantic comedy, well it is kind of, but really it's original, and different. To know more about this movie...watch it! I recommend it anyway. Also Mel's friend is an interesting character. To know someone in Junior High that you despised because they were popular and then fall in love with them after 11 years, is pretty cool and understandable. The person is DIFFERENT now, ever heard the expression "people change"? Well this movie is meaningful to a lot of people. The whole idea...is different, and fun to imagine. And you don't even have to imagine it because you can just watch the movie.