Why so much hype?

the audience applauded

An Exercise In Nonsense

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

In "Amusing Ourselves to Death", American writer Neil Postman wrote very briefly about how different American cities have, over time, come to represent the definitive American 'spirit' of a given era. In the wake of America's birth, it was Boston. Halfway through the nineteenth century, New York was the famous 'melting pot' while Chicago, in the early twentieth, was the city of the industrial energy and dynamism of the time. Various monuments have, by his reckoning, additionally acted as "odes" to these times - the Minuteman statue in Boston, for instance, and the Statue of Liberty as a beacon of New York's hospitality. At the time of his writing the book in 1985, Postman lamented that the Marlboro Man was, in his opinion, the 'monument' which best encapsulated America's "character" - the city of Las Vegas the locale which now best captures the American "spirit". Postman's book was ultimately about how television was 'dumbing down' or 'trivialising' America, and the effects such an invention had on everything from how Americans conduct their political discourse to how they feel about religion and themselves. "Last Vegas" proves that, thirty years on, the spirit is still alive and well. The film is about four men old enough to know better taking a trip to the Nevada hotspot in order to celebrate the fact one of them is getting married. They drink a lot of alcohol; one of them looks to have sex with another woman and they end up judging a bikini contest. The film, like the characters, seems to agree this is all a bit of a blast...The men in question are Billy; Paddy; Archie and Sam, played respectively by acting heavyweights Michael Douglas; Robert De Niro; Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline. Each has been very funny in the past, in a variety of films ranging from "Bruce Almighty" to "Meet the Parents" by way of "A Fish Called Wanda". Not so here. The gang have known one another since they were boys in a rough 1950's New York neighbourhood - scenes set at this time, with boy actors who bear close resemblances to their legendary grown up counterparts, leave you wanting much more of them, particularly by the hour mark. Billy (Douglas) is the one getting married - to a woman aged 32, which is around half his own age. "Wow!" exclaims one of his pals, before Billy does the arithmetic: "By the time she's my age, I'll be..." his friend beats him to the punch: "You'll be Dead, Billy..." I've just done some arithmetic of my own - Douglas was 25 when he married Catherine Zeta-Jones. Was there supposed to be some kind of in-joke there? If there was, did people think that would be funny? Through extraordinarily contrived circumstances, each of them manage to either slink or drag themselves away from their existing predicaments to the citadel of their national time. None of the men are in particularly good shape, with each of them nursing various physical and psychological ailments. One telephone call that begins with the statement "I've got news!", for instance, wryly induces the pessimistic response from down the other end: "Heart, cancer or prostate?" In Florida, Kevin Kline is just trying to get used to a new metal joint replacement; in Brooklyn, De Niro mopes around a pokey flat, clinically depressed over his wife's recent passing, and elsewhere, Freeman is getting sick of his son interacting with him as if he was useless now that he's old. With very little in the way of set up for any of these people, we feel very little for anyone or anything other than the De Niro character and his coping with loss when everybody arrives in Vegas. We later learn why he bears some antagonism towards the Michael Douglas character, and get to witness a narrative similar to it unfold all over again here when a lounge singer played by Mary Steenburgen is roped into a love triangle. Meanwhile, the Kline and Freeman characters become increasingly superfluous when they are not merely unpleasant - Kline's arc to do with possessing a contraception he becomes increasingly desperate to use on one of the numerous younger women around in town is especially disagreeable. When the film tries to pull the handbrake on this at the very end, in the process attempting to put across some message to do with being faithful to a lifelong marriage, we are not fooled. Jon Turteltaub seems to be perpetually in two minds as to which film he wants to make - the one about two old friends bearing a grudge and being forced to bury a hatchet is more interesting than the other one, but the film's tone shoots all over the place like a high pressure hose: one minute it is a solemn relationships drama, the next it is a raucous booze fuelled laughathon. Watching it is a little like seeing two pairs of characters from two different films who have wondered into the same picture - I can see absolutely no purpose to Kline's presence here other than to act as a beacon of sexualised humour.As before, the four headlining the film have been relatively funny in other films which have been much funnier than this, but the difference lay in the writing; the consistency in the tone and them actually having something to deliver. In the midst of everything, a really rather odd running gag is tossed in whereby De Niro gets to pretend to be a feared East Coast mobster, thus calling to mind somewhat his work in Martin Scorsese's 1995 film "Casino", which largely unfolded in Vegas. I see no real reason to recommend you see "Last Vegas" for this, or any other reason, other than to witness how the American "spirit" is still going.

My parents made me watch this movie and I pretty much hated everything about it. The characters were all very bland and are very forgettable. The performances go from pretty bad to just fine, which makes for a very uninteresting movie. The plot was predictable and it didn't feel like the director was really passionate about this story and wanted it to be told. The music is either something you could find on a royalty free website or just some pop song. The cinematography nearly all of time was very dull with only a few interesting shots and some with good shot composition. The dialogue is just very tame and like most things in this movie, unforgettable. But the main problem with this film is probably the comedy. I only chuckled about twice during this movie as most of the jokes were predictable or obnoxious with most of them just being " ha old people shouldn't being doing those things but they are." Overall this movie is pretty bad, boring and bland and I would not recommend. 2/10 with some interesting shots every twenty minutes and a good moral sprinkled in there.

This film is all about the actors who appeared in main roles. De Niro,Freeman and Douglas were totally convincing in their roles. I loved it when Freeman showing his dance moves. The script is more of a Hangover type but kept me entertained. The frames are really impressive and the main highlight is the effortless and captivating screen presence of the legends. The film succeeds in becoming a comedy entertainer and also reflects the bond of loyalty and friendship.

Just imagine four Academy Award winning actors including Michae Douglas, Kevin Kline, Morgan Freeman, and Robert DeNiro are four Brooklyn friends from the fifties. They reunite for a wedding Las Vegas at the Aria Hotel and Casino. The film also includes Mary Steenburgen as Diana, a singer at Binions on Fremont Street. The film's weakness is in the writing but it's still enjoyable though. You have great actors in one film. Despite some flaws, the film is funny and enjoyable though. I love Las Vegas which is always fun to see on film. Thankfully, they used taxis rather than rent a car. Despite the cost of taxis due to traffic on the strip, it is the best way to travel. I enjoy seeing the sights. They must have filmed it during winter because the heat can be unbearable and unhealthy for their ages. Still it's a fun comedy with great stars.