New Year's Eve: Critic Reviews

Yet another Garry Marshall mix-and-match mash-up of movie stars, holiday bromides and a laugh-free - even laugh-retardant - script by Katherine Fugate.

It's basically Love Actually without the, erm, wit, pathos, humanity, humour and modest wage bill of Richard Curtis' seasonal luvvie-in.

It would be a step in the right direction if New Year's Eve could aspire to be phony and manipulative. It fails to rise to even that level of incompetence, and it's happy with its stupidity.

The half-hearted presence of these actors is the ultimate metaphor for the current tragedy facing the creative class.

Marshall sticks to his rose-colored principles: You gotta have hope, listen to your heart and take leaps of faith. Plus a new one: Sarah Jessica Parker should never make it through a movie without at least one pair of fabulous shoes.

This is repeat business for the filmmakers of Valentine's Day, except that this charmless party of a movie (and movie of a party) has larger cast and is even more schmaltzy than the first picture.

Marshall sticks to his rose-colored principles: You gotta have hope, listen to your heart and take leaps of faith. Plus a new one: Sarah Jessica Parker should never make it through a movie without at least one pair of fabulous shoes.

It all adds up to a celebrity-obsessed city symphony played on one painfully flat note.

This is a party you can't wait to be over.

Though the screenplay is inane, New Year's Eve coasts on the easy charm of its stars... There's an inherent pleasure in seeing Saturday Night Live's Meyers go head to head with Inglourious Basterd Schweiger, just because it's so very strange.

A New Year's toast as sentimental as singing Auld Lang Syne!