You can skip ‘Leap Year’

Humorless, anti-climatic, and lacking even the slightest chemistry between the actors, “Leap Year” was disappointing.
With Amy Adams and Mathew Goode, I thought “Leap Year” would be a cute romantic comedy I could watch again and again whenever I needed a movie to cheer me up. Instead, as I sat through this tediously long movie, I became angry that I had spent $7.50 and two hours of my Friday night watching a bad movie — and embarrassed, since I convinced my friend to accompany me by telling her that romantic comedies are rarely disappointing.
“Leap Year” is, unfortunately, one of the rare few.
Adams plays a controlling American who flies to Ireland to propose to her American doctor boyfriend. Because of bad weather, the plane has to land in a different town where she meets an Irish lad, the handsome Goode, with whom she ends up falling in love with as he travels with her to Dublin. The plot line remains very simple throughout the movie.
It’s supposed to be a romantic comedy. However, it lacks both romance and wit.
Usually, when I watch romantic comedies — like “Bridget Jones’ Diary” or “The Proposal” — the chemistry between the actors is so believable that I am convinced they must be a couple in real life.
Adams and Patrick Dempsey did an excellent job of this in “Enchanted” as did Goode and Mandy Moore in “Chasing Liberty.” Knowing these actors’ skills, I thought there would be definite chemistry between them.
Unfortunately, Adams and Goode did not convince me at all that they were in love. And it is quite hard to watch a movie about falling in love when I am not rightly persuaded that the characters are in love.
Also, the sprinkled bits of humor that usually make a movie that much better made “Leap Year” that much worse. There was a funny aside about three old men who forgot the details of a superstition and would argue about it for a minute or two. For example, was it bad to begin traveling on a Sunday, a Monday, or a Tuesday?
The joke was funny the first time it was played out, but after the fifth time the old men forgot the details of a superstition, the only people in the theater who were laughing were old men who had forgotten the joke.
These jokes could be forgiven as a small blemish if they are part of a great movie.
The problem is “Leap Year” is not a great movie.

— Mia Walsh is a senior at Davis High School and a member of the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed journalism program for students.