Charlie St. Cloud: Review

My man crush deepens....

Zac Efron man. Who would have thought a dude from Disney would eventually become an independent, self-respecting leading actor only 2 years after High School Musical. Say what you want about him, this guy knows how to pick his projects.

So this movie is about Charlie St. Cloud, a sailing dude who wins a scholarship to Stanford and before he leaves, he promises to practice baseball with his little brother, Sam everyday before sunset before he leaves. So one night, he's babysitting his brother but he decides he wants to go for a ride and brings his brother along with him but they get hit by a truck and little brother dies. Charlie dies to but is revived in the ambulance and begins to feel massive guilt for his brothers death. But Charlie does a Sixth Sense and manages to see his brother's ghost and promises to play baseball with him everyday like they planned 13 years later, he's given up on his scholarship and is still playing baseball with Casper.

 

Before I go into anything else, Imma just say that the base of Charlie St. Cloud is completely dumb. The movie has terrible writing with too many plot conveniences that are neither realistic, plausible nor believable even in a fantasy story. The ending is really predictable, sappy and almost Nicholas Sparks like. Basically, the whole story = piece of shit.

But what I won't say is shit was Zac Efron in this. As stupid as the movie is, he puts the material to reallyy good use here. I think as far as acting goes, Efron demonstrated his range as a performer the most in this movie than any other film he has been in. He managed to play a tortured man, racked with guilt and instability without coming across as a total psycho. The man is well on his way to become the next Leonardo de Caprio is he keeps doing what he's doing. Just choose a better script next time.

Oh and just a minor complaint about him. See, he's suppose to be a sailor dude right. So Zac Efron is shirtless in some parts of the film which I felt were just stupid. I was going,"Oh crap he's on the boat again. He's gonna take- oh maybe he won't that grea- oh no no no, don't... don't- dammit he took it off." And all them ladies go, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

Oh and Amanda Crew of Sex Drive is in this and I thought she did a fantastic job playing Zac's love interest. You know, she doesn't have much scenes with him but the romance they build still managed to be slow and organic. But I did feel she was a little one note, not giving us any more than what she was supposed to be, which was Zac Efron's squeeze. But she's one good looking girl.

Charlie St. Cloud does present a nice subtext of life and death. Of loving, losing, mourning and letting go which I thought was great. The only problem is this was in the hands of a retard director. I think Charlie St. Cloud needed to be at least 20 minutes longer to let the plot and themes play out more because the whole movie was trying to be serious but rushed at the same time.

Go see this if you are a Zac Efron or a Nicholas Sparks friend. Basically if your gay or have a vagina you'll enjoy this. What? Whaddya looking at me like that? Wait- wha- NO! No I ain't gay. No wait- why you laughing? I didn't like the movie alrigh- Oh c'mon!!!

RATING: 4/10