HOMECOMING
Sub-Genre- Lifetime Movie
In Attendance- Me
Cast Members of Note- Mischa Barton, Jessica Stroup, Matt Long, and a bunch of other WB/UPN looking tweens.
What's it About?- The former golden-boy Quarterback of Moose-Neck, Wisconsin returns to have his High School jersey number retired, with his new hot college girlfriend in tow. Shelby, his former High School girlfriend works in a bowling alley now, smokes, drinks like a fish, and is crazy. She still thinks they're together of course, and when he makes it clear that he's moved on, creepiness ensues.
Shelby proceeds to get his new chick drunk, and when golden-boy lets his cousin drop her off at a motel all alone (don't ask), forcing her to walk to the next town while shitfaced (?!?), Shelby hits her with a car, and takes her home Misery-style to nurse her back to health...
So with the new hot girlfriend missing, no one looks for her, or questions the nutbag ex girlfriend, or does much of anything else for that matter. And that's pretty much all that happens until right near the end of the movie... I won't spoil what comes next here, because who really cares, but suffice it to say that Misery did it better. Way better.
The Good- I liked Mischa Barton in this. Ditto Jessica Stroup. It's just too bad that the script was so weak and not only made little sense, but didn't give the actors much to work with. Honestly, Homecoming felt like a bland TV movie, that the participants made because they owed somebody a favor. That's it. I've got no more to say.
The Bad- Is this movie filled with the dumbest people ever? The whole "I'll stay in a hotel because I'm too drunk to meet your mom, then hike to 4 miles Mayberry (no, that's not a joke) while I'm drunk because the motel you had your cousin dump me off at was full" thing was horrible, horrible writing. Then again, most of the characters in this movie made zero sense, so I guess it's par for the course. Thank you lazy script writers.
The Downright Horrendous- Do we really need to see that closing shot again, for the 200,536th time? All I'll say is there better not be a sequel.
The Gory- Not so much.
The Naked- Again, not so much.
What did we learn?- Lifetime movies aren't scary. Also, Wisconsin is full of mean, stupid people. (Don't blame me for that stereotype, Wisconsin people, I didn't write the damn movie.)
Rating- D (4.0/10) This is a bland, bloodless, frustrating, disappointing tween-version of Misery, sans any element that made that film great. It's a shame too, because they had some talent to work with, and a premise that could have been all kinds of nasty fun, but they did absolutely nothing with it. If you watch this, you probably won't hate sitting through, you just won't care.
Final Thoughts- Looking this movie up on IMDB, I noticed that it's going to be on TV this weekend... on the Lifetime Network. That about says it all, and perfectly.
