Dude, Like, I Love You...WHOA!
Keanu Reeves is now famous for being in "The Matrix" movies. But way before he was a guy named Neo, who found out he's living in a computer generated world, fighting Men In Black-wannabe guys, and floating in the air with a super skinny chick named Trinity, he made...not such glamourous movies. My personal favorite Pre-Matrix Keanu movie are the Bill and Ted movies, in which plays Ted "Theodore" Logan. Flash forward about 6 or 7 later and you got "Sweet November".
Obviously no one told Keanu that he can not be romantic worth a damn. Only if someone told him that, we all would be in better shape.
Keanu plays Nelson, a very silly and goofy name, but the character is a super wealthy ad executive, who is partners with his friend Vince, who is played by one of the lawyer dudes in "Ally McBeal". (No, I don't know which one.) Nelson (Who names their kid "Nelson" for cryin' out loud?!) has to renew his license, so he's at the DMV taking the test when, who walks in the door?
Bill S. Preston, Esq!!!!! WYLD STALLIONS!!!!
No, wait, sorry. It's Charleze Thoron, who plays Sarah. She too needs her licence for her job, which consists of rescuing animals. But because Nelson is too damn busy all the time, he didn't study for the test, so he asks Sarah for the answers and while trying to help him, she gets caught and can't get her license renewed.
Later, she's waiting on Nelson's car, kinda peeved that he caused her to fail the test. So peeved that later she tracks him down at his highscale apartment, begging for a ride. Nelson finally gives in after she embarasses him in front of his neighbors. Which shouldn't be too hard, having to go through life named Nelson is embarrassment enough but I digress on his name, which is still stupid.
Nelson gives Sarah a ride to some place that was, apparently, torturing animals. It wasn't totally confirmed if these animals were being tortured, who knows she could've just said that. When he drops her off at her place, she tells him that he is a self centered workaholic jag-off and she wants to change him. So she says starting November 1st, she will change Nelson and work on him for the entire month. He says no and he goes home.
The next day, which was suppose to be Halloween but no one seemed to have mentioned it...maybe they don't have Halloween in L.A or San Fransisco or whever this movie takes place, Nelson goes into a meeting to pitch his ad idea to a hot dog company. It's kind hard to put into words what his ad idea was but this should sum it up:
"It's a hot dog!!" (Half naked woman with a hot dog between her breasts.)
"It's a hot dog!!" (Half naked guy holding a hot dog by his groin area.)
"IT'S A HOT DOG!!!!" (Half naked girl and guy with the hot dog crammed between them.)
Needless to say, the company didn't like his idea and Nelson's boss ends up firing him. Oh, and his girlfriend breaks up with him. I forgot about his girlfriend, and he did too. So after awhile, Nelson decides to take Sarah up on her offer to stay with her for a month so she can change him into a normal human being.
I won't go into exact details of the process that she goes through to change him, mainly because it sounds silly typing it out. But during the month, Nelson befriends a fatherless kid, who is in some kind of toy boat race. So Nelson helps the kid out...by beating up the other kids. Ok, that didn't happen, but it would've helped the movie a tad bit. He pays some geeky looking kid with a toy submarine to take out the other kids boats, making the kid, who's named Abner (Man the screenwriters were obsessed with goofy names), the winner.
The more Nelson is with Sarah, the more he finds out about her life, but there is one dark secret that he doesn't know. And you think it's the fact that her friend and neighbor Chazz is a crossdressing gay dude, who calls himself "Cherry" when in drag. Nope, it's the fact that she has (Insert dramatic soap opera music "DUH-DUH-DUHHHAA!!") cancer and has been avoid treatment because she wants to die...or something.
There's kind of a weird side story about Sarah and her family and that she and her sister had a pet store that was becoming big, but she quit before it did and won't talk to anyone in her family.
And if you're wondering if Nelson ever changed his ways, well, sometime around the 17th, he had a meeting with a very big ad firm and after seeing what kind of jerk the president is, Nelson says "Like, no way, man!! DUDE!!!" Ok, I was expecting him to say it.
He asks Sarah to marry him, she says no, gets real sick and kicks Nelson out. Then here's a montoge of Nelson getting all weepy and thinking back of all the good times...let's take the time and do that now...ok that's enough.
On Thanksgiving, he breaks into her place while she's having dinner. Yes, breaks in, meaning through the window, and gives her 12 gifts. Eleven of them are things you need to see the movie to understand but the 12th...
OH DEAR LORD JESUS, KEANU REEVES IS SINGING!!! STOP THE PAIN!! STOP THE PAIN!!!! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO DESERVE THIS?!?!? OH SWEET GOD!!! AHH!!! MOMMY!! MOMMY!!! AHHHH!!!!!!
(whew...)
Sarah tells Nelson she can't be with him because she doesn't want him to see her die or something like that and she blindfolds him and then runs like hell, because she doesn't want to hear "Like, I love you, Sarah...hang ten, dude!!" all of her life.
Keanu Reeves should never ever again be romantic in any movie. He's good has Ted, he's good has Neo and he's good...umm...that's all I know really. I heard "Point Break" sucks, but he's a surfer so it can't suck that bad and...oh yeah, he was ok has a L.A cop in "Speed". I'm sure in L.A, all the cops are surfer type dudes who says "Whoa" and "Dude" every other word. Another thing that threw me off was Nelson talked to himself...a lot! And he had manic mood swings. One minute he'd be like "Oh Sarah I love you" then the next minute "What the hell?!?!?!? ARRRGH!! RAAH!!" or something to that extent. Also because of the bummer ending and, dear lord why, Keanu singing, I didn't like this movie a whole lot. Like, I'm sorry, dude, you're gonna have to, like, go back to the waves, and, like, make a third Bill & Ted movie, cause, like, you're never gonna get an Oscar. Whoa...
2 stars.
"Sweet November" On IMDb.com:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230838/
Holy Crap!! It was a remake!!! And they had normal names!!! I HATE REMAKES!!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063661/