Better Luck Tomorrow

source: Better Luck Tomorrow

Trailer—Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow

Its all well and good that this movie is attempting to break down stereotypes (perhaps by replacing them with other stereotypes), but that doesn't necessarily make for a good movie. You could have changed a few names, used some different actors, and this would be an ordinary, bland movie about "rich youth gone bad". It has been done better. I liked the characters, but the story just wasn't developed enough and they never really get into motivations. They tried to throw in a few lines of "what is the meaning of life", but that does *not* connect various scenes into an actual telling story and it does *not* a plot make. Too many loose ends are left at the end of this movie. If they want to pretend they "meant to do that", well, I just don't believe 'em. You never really get into most of the characters deep enough to explain why you had to watch them run around for the previous 2 hours. "Amongst Friends" was the same movie done several years back, but it was just better written.

"Better Luck Tomorrow", a lukewarm attempt at film making and a poor attempt at story telling, tries too hard to be cool and not hard enough to be real. Focusing on a group of 5 affluent male SoCal AsianAm teens and one girl, this film offers only paper thin characters who apparently have no life beyond their high school and recreational activities and can't manage a range of emotion beyond disaffected indolence to some hostility. There is precious little of interest in this shallow, hollow, monotonous, naive example of why we should all be hoping for better luck with tomorrow's movie. Oh, yeah, and I do know these kids...much better than most. Another bad call by Ebert. Go see "Bully" (2001) instead. (C-)

This film had potential. Lots and lots of potential. But sadly, like most MTV productions (save for Napoleon Dynamite), it falls flat on its face toward the midpoint. There really is no direct plot (except something about an academic decathalon), and the characters offer no sympathy whatsoever--they're all snotty Dawson's Creek-esquire rich brats. And for the record, there is one big, huge continuity error in the beginning of the movie: two of the main character discover a dead body in the backyard of a house and one of the character's voice-over declares, "It was the first time either of us had seen a dead body." Bull. Bull. Bull. You put the body there, moron! At the end of the film, they murder a fellow Asian student and put his body in that exact same spot! It's a shame that they didn't try to make a better Asian teen-oriented movie. See Attack the Gas Station! instead.