Little Italy Review – Somehow, Hayden Christensen made a worse romance than Attack of the Clones

Warning: spoilers ahead

So months ago, I was on /r/movies, and I saw the terribly poster for this movie. Earlier tonight, my girlfriend and I wanted to go see Crazy Rich Asians, however, she got the times wrong, and the only movie that was about to start at the theatre when we walked in was Little Italy. We remember laughing at the poster when it was posted here months ago, so we decided to give it a shot.

So it’s the opening weekend, and the theatre had around 5 people in it when we walked in. However, to our surprise, a group of 10 walked in, and they appeared to be big fans (Local Hayden Christensen fan club?), bringing the total up to around 17 in a theatre that set 100 for the only screening of the night.

So the movie started with the most painful narration I have ever heard. Think about the worst movie accents you’ve ever heard, Nic Cage in Con Air, Kevin Costner in Robin Hood, hell, Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October. Now imagine an accent that is somehow worse. The film is set in Toronto, and Hayden Christensen literally lives there (well, Markham). His normal speaking voice is fine, yet he kept slipping in and out of the most terrible Italian accent you’ve ever heard, like he spent days watching offensive Italian stereotypes, then decided to emulate it, but only occasionally, and constantly slipping in and out of it. The attempt at an Italian accent really makes no sense, considering that his character is like, 3rd generation Torontonian anyways.

Then as the movie starts, it is some of the worst derivative comedy I have ever seen. Almost every single joke was recycled from somewhere else (There were a few jokes shamelessly stolen from Gordon Ramsey that were particularly bad; “Moron sandwich”, really?). The screenwriters really didn’t understand the idea of “show, not tell”. A few scenes in the shitshow of the first 30 minutes in this movie really did stand out as particularly bad. Remember the basketball scene from Catwoman? Well, it is no longer the worst sports scene in a movie, as there’s soccer scene in this one that somehow makes that one look good.

Then we really got into the characters and man, was it terrible. Hayden Christensen stars as Leo, a deadbeat guy that never really did anything with his life, and Emma Roberts is Nikki, his childhood friend who went to a prestigious culinary institute in London. Look, the movie tries its hardest to portray them as childhood friends, but the two leads have a 10 year age gap, and it is obvious. Christensen looks more like Roberts’ creepy uncle than childhood friend.

As the movie progressed, the jokes really got worse. I’m convinced that the movie offended every single demographic, as the jokes were mostly offensive, and the every single damned time, the script writers went for the lowest hanging fruit. And half the gags made little sense, as the movie tried its damned hardest to convince people that Christensen is really, really sexy. Like, so sexy a police officers who was a walking lesbian stereotype can’t resist sexually harassing him while searching him for drugs (aside: is the audience really supposed to believe that a pizza shop can’t tell the difference between marijuana and oregano?)

The first half of this movie was utterly dreadful, as there were almost zero clever jokes. Every joke was either stolen from somewhere else, or is painfully offensive and more groan inducing than funny. Just as you’re about to walk out though, the second half does slightly pick up the pace.

The jokes never really did get cleverer, but the second half of the movie did completely give up even the most minimal pretense of being witty. There were a few really, really low hanging puns that did get a decent chuckle out of me (IE: the Indian restaurant named Korma Sutra). Somehow, the acting was also slightly better in the second half of the movie, although by no means was it actually good.

Overall, the movie was utterly terrible. Remember the terrible romance from Attack of the Clones? Somehow, more than a decade later, Christensen didn’t improve at all, he still can’t figure out how to portray an effective romance, and honestly, the romance in Attack of the Clones was probably still better. At least there, all the actors looked like they were trying. In Little Italy, there were a few scenes where the actor was visible cringing while delivering their lines. There’s also significant amounts of noticeable dubbing in the movie, where it feels like they rewrote the lines but didn’t reshoot the scene.

I guess there were some good parts in this mess of a movie. Christensen told the press he actually learned how to make pizzas in preparation for the movie, and it shows. His form is good, and the pizzas look good, really good. Emma Roberts is gorgeous, and she was given plenty of both punny and flattering outfits.

Overall, I seemed to have enjoyed it a bit more than my girlfriend, but that’s because I think Little Italy has truly reached “so terrible it’s shameless” territory. The movie was better than the true bottom tier of films (The Room, Bucky Larson), but the movie is just overall half assed, with terrible, terrible jokes. At literally every single turn, Little Italy went for the lowest hanging fruit, culminating in a movie that probably offends every single demographic. Christensen really should go open a pizza shop, as his pizza making was sure better than his comedic timing.

PS: Christensen had significant wrinkles on his forehead, wrinkles that the makeup team didn't even try to hide despite the fact that he was supposed to be a "young guy" working at his pop's pizza shop. It looked weird at first, but his wrinkles were the most expressive thing in the whole movie, at least his forehead wrinkles showed real emotion, unlike every other actor.

Submitted August 27, 2018 at 12:42PM by Uptons_BJs https://ift.tt/2P6N6y8