Review: No Reservations

A very hot master chef in an uptown posh restaurant is obsessed with her career and basically doesn’t have any room for emotion or anybody who doesn’t work under her in the kitchen. Unfortunately for her, our master chef’s controlled little world is turned upside down when she gains custody of her nine year-old niece. Then, to make matters worse, her job is on the line or at least she feels her job is, when a new unconventional sous-chef enters the picture. Extremely light comedy and romance unfolds.

I’ll break it down to you like this: the movie “looked” good, Zeta-Jones “looked” good, Eckhart “looked” good and Abigail Breslin “looked” cute. In fact, even the acting was good! The beginning started off as a real bummer and then slowly transitioned into a really, really light comedy-romance story. But that was the problem; the story was completely boring and ridiculously predictable. There is definitely something that can be said about real life humor, you really have to be there and experience it to be funny. I’m quite confident the “funny” scenes were much more humorous on the set shooting the scene, but they really didn’t translate well on the big screen. All funny stuff aside, there were some tender moments that I think the “female” audience will appreciate, but then again…maybe some of the guys will too (although you certainly wouldn’t hear about it from them).

Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, our master chef. This wasn’t a real stretch for her as all she really needed to do was look extremely sexy in a chef uniform. She wasn’t bad or anything; it’s just that her character was badly written. I just couldn’t feel sorry for her or relate in any way. Oh boo-who, I’m an emotionless workaholic who has to take care of my sister’s little girl. AAAAAANYWAYS!!

Aaron Eckhart plays Nick, the sous-chef. I’m actually still not entirely sure if he was supposed to be the comic relief or the love interest, but either way, it didn’t really work all that well. I don’t know what happened either; this dude was hilarious in THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, so why did his humor feel forced here? Not sure, but it just didn’t work for me. PLUS, the whole love interest thing was unbelievable and rushed. I just didn’t see the two of them together, a royal bitch with a really nice guy? C’mon?!? OK, maybe the last comment could be debated, but the two of them just didn’t feel right.

Abigail Breslin plays Zoe, Kate’s niece. WHOA, look out Dakota Fanning, you gotz some competition girl! Breslin was as cute as can be, believable and her emotional scenes worked! Her scenes with Eckhart were probably the best scenes in the whole movie. Big things are in store for this young actress!

I honestly really wanted to like this movie, especially because of the restaurant theme (I’m an amateur cook at heart and I watch the Food Network more than I should), so I was expecting a little more cooking in the film, rather than all of the bonding issue stuff. That said, this is clearly a “date movie”, but I personally don’t think you have to run out and see it. Like I said, the story was just…blah.

— by Tim
Goernert