'The Bachelor' is a light hearted comedy about the transition that a young man experiences going from bachelorhood to married life. The only difference is that this young man's transition is rather rushed as he must become married in order to qualify for an inheritance. This movie had the potential to be a lot funnier than what resulted but it was still somewhat humorous.
Jimmie Shannon (Chris O'Donnell) is a young bachelor that is presented with a rather unique opportunity to become a very wealthy man. Jimmie's cantankerous old grandfather passes away and leaves a $100 million inheritance for him but there are conditions attached to it. In order for him to recieve this money, he has to get married by the time he turns 30. The only problem is that Jimmie turns 30 in less than 24 hours from the time he hears about the inheritance. As you can probably guess, Jimmie spends the rest of the movie trying to find a woman who will marry him. Normally this probably wouldn't be a problem if the woman knew that she was marrying into a $100 million except that Jimmie finds intolerable faults with every exgirlfriend except for one girl (Renee Zellweger) that he truly loves. Only problem is that they had a fight recently and broke up before Jimmie found out about his inheritance therefore his task becomes doubly difficult.
As I mentioned, the storyline had the potential to create a very humorus movie but I found myself occassionally bored and the laughs that it did produce were good enough to generate a chuckle but nothing more. Most of this movie focussed around the pseudo relationship between O'Donnell's character and Zellweger's character but the story telling was rather disjointed. On the one side the movie tried to show the humor of the situation and the dilemma that O'Donnell's character was facing as he continually had problems proposing to different women, including Zellweger's character. On the other side, the movie tried to show the woman's side of it through the eyes of Zellweger but it almost felt like two different movies. The movie didn't have the identity of a romantic comedy (which I thought it was trying to be) nor was it out right hilarious to be a true comedy.
I found O'Donnell's performance a little over-the-top as he tried to generate the humor. At times he seemed on the verge of being uncontrolled in his performance and at other times he didn't seem to quite grasp the art of comedic acting. I've seen Zellweger in other movies and to date her acting range has been fairly narrow. She always seems to have the same emotions but I guess if the story doesn't demand very much in that department, you're not going to get that big a range in performance. I also found the writing rather poor as some of the lines just didn't seem to fit and ended up making the delivery of them awkward.
Despite the negatives that I pointed out, there were some humorous moments but in the end they were not gut-bustingly funny. Overall, if you want to see this movie, I would suggest you go see it as a matinee but it is definitely not worth full admission.
Jimmie Shannon (Chris O'Donnell) is a young bachelor that is presented with a rather unique opportunity to become a very wealthy man. Jimmie's cantankerous old grandfather passes away and leaves a $100 million inheritance for him but there are conditions attached to it. In order for him to recieve this money, he has to get married by the time he turns 30. The only problem is that Jimmie turns 30 in less than 24 hours from the time he hears about the inheritance. As you can probably guess, Jimmie spends the rest of the movie trying to find a woman who will marry him. Normally this probably wouldn't be a problem if the woman knew that she was marrying into a $100 million except that Jimmie finds intolerable faults with every exgirlfriend except for one girl (Renee Zellweger) that he truly loves. Only problem is that they had a fight recently and broke up before Jimmie found out about his inheritance therefore his task becomes doubly difficult.
As I mentioned, the storyline had the potential to create a very humorus movie but I found myself occassionally bored and the laughs that it did produce were good enough to generate a chuckle but nothing more. Most of this movie focussed around the pseudo relationship between O'Donnell's character and Zellweger's character but the story telling was rather disjointed. On the one side the movie tried to show the humor of the situation and the dilemma that O'Donnell's character was facing as he continually had problems proposing to different women, including Zellweger's character. On the other side, the movie tried to show the woman's side of it through the eyes of Zellweger but it almost felt like two different movies. The movie didn't have the identity of a romantic comedy (which I thought it was trying to be) nor was it out right hilarious to be a true comedy.
I found O'Donnell's performance a little over-the-top as he tried to generate the humor. At times he seemed on the verge of being uncontrolled in his performance and at other times he didn't seem to quite grasp the art of comedic acting. I've seen Zellweger in other movies and to date her acting range has been fairly narrow. She always seems to have the same emotions but I guess if the story doesn't demand very much in that department, you're not going to get that big a range in performance. I also found the writing rather poor as some of the lines just didn't seem to fit and ended up making the delivery of them awkward.
Despite the negatives that I pointed out, there were some humorous moments but in the end they were not gut-bustingly funny. Overall, if you want to see this movie, I would suggest you go see it as a matinee but it is definitely not worth full admission.