The reviews aren't too favorable for this lady-centric guy comedy.
Ah, the summer comedy. It’s a noble tradition of coming of coming-of-age stories, simple scripts, predictable dialogue and, usually, a lot of sexual exploration. Cue The To Do List, which does pretty much the same thing, except with a female protagonist - Aubrey Plaza as the Type A loser kid Brandy. What The Heat was for the buddy cop genre, this is for that special category – summer fling movies. And, similarly to The Heat, the reviews are lukewarm at best.
Plaza is usually a favorite with critics, but this time is an exception.
The LA Times’ Betsy Sharkey gives the film the ultimate “meh” rating – “it’s not that bad, but it’s not that good either.” Sharkey’s review points out that it takes a lot more than raunchy language to make a movie like this work and The To Do List lacks some much needed self-irony.
Watch the trailer for The To Do List below.
The New York Daily News, on the other hand, praises the film for the refreshing, feminine point of view… and not much else. The review can be summed up in the statement “Everyone thinks sex is easy to do, but that doesn’t mean they’re good at it.” Joe Neumaier pans the movie for relying too much on the humor of a 13-year-old – “mere mention of body parts and giddy euphemisms” – and not enough on actual depth of story or characters.
So far, this is the general consensus about The To Do List – it’s funny enough to fill an uneventful summer afternoon, but not worth remembering longer than that.
Stars Aubrey Plaza and Rachel Bilson attended the film's premiere earlier this week.
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