No Strings Attached

I was all prepared to watch The King's Speech a second time on my plane ride back, but to my surprise, there was a whole bunch of new movies to choose from! Do planes usually update their movies so fast? Anyways, one of the only ones I had not seen was No Strings Attached, and so it was.

Starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, No Strings Attached is pretty much what you can assume from the title: a couple in a "friends with benefits" sort of situation (though that is a totally different movie with her Black Swan frienemy Mila Kunis) and low and behold, they fall in love.

I have always been a fan of Natalie Portman, I think because she has such a strong head on her shoulders. She generally picks solid movies to be in, and the fact that she when to university is really cool. I thought Black Swan was ok, I wouldn't argue with her Oscar win, but the movie wasn't super-fantastic or anything. My mind was not as blown as I would have hoped for with that one. Anyways, No Strings Attached is obviously very different from Black Swan and I enjoyed seeing Natalie in a more light-hearted role. I liked Kutcher as Kelso in That 70's Show, but when he married Demi Moore, it kind of confused me. Not that I expect people to be like their characters, but after that 70's show and Punked, I would have not expected him to be saddled with a much older wife and step-children close to his age. You can't help who you love, but for some reason, I just found him less funny after that, like his stupid play-boy persona was a lie and he was really this mature man. I don't know if that makes sense, but he was alright in this movie, he didn't really bring anything special and could have been easily replaced by other rom-coms actors like Bradley Cooper or Ryan Reynolds.

Overall it was what you would expect. I laughed-out-loud three times on the plane while watching this movie. They were quite ones, and not belly laughs, half because I was on a plane, half because I was sick, and half because they weren't belly-laugh worthy moments. (Thirds just wouldn't sound the same) Disappointingly, there are no real curves in this movie, they have lots of casual sex, one falls in love with the other, the other calls it off because that wasn't the deal, then they realize they are in love, go to get them back, there is a slight misunderstanding, but they all end up happily ever after.

A shout-out to Kevin Kline, who plays Ashton's dad, and was a nice addition to the cast.

What you would expect, but that's okay.