The premise of time travel in movies has always been that one small change in the past can have very dramatic changes to the present. Given how promising the movie started off, I was excited to see how the different scenarios would play out. Unfortunately, the various story lines fell short. Each new variation of Avery and Noah seemed random and disconnected, and completely out of character.
Most notably, given what a nice guy Noah is portrayed as, and the strong feelings he has for Avery, why would them hooking up lead to a 3 year "friends with benefits" style relationship where they are hardly even friends, and Noah is (as he puts it) "full asshole"? Perhaps more of an explanation was needed.
The writers tried so hard to show that Avery and Noah didn't belong together, that the story lines seemed forced and extreme. In each story line you could have replaced Avery with Carrie, the inevitable soulmate, or any random girl for that matter, and the relationship would have failed. It would have had more of an impact if the different variations of their 3 years together were genuine and more realistic, or if the couple at least had a fair chance, and it ended because it was clear they were just suited better as friends. Or Noah realised he wasn't as happy as he thought he would be. Or Avery couldn't help but fall for Ethan. Or anything other than the doomed-to-fail over exaggerated scenarios the writers chose.
The acting wasn't bad, but it was difficult to care about Noah given how his character traits and feelings seemed to be determined more by his given situation rather than him as a person. The jokes were sparse and alot of the times fell short.
There also wasn't enough of him and Carrie together to warrant her being "the one". It is implausible that Avery's best girl friend (Carrie) and best guy friend (Noah) would see or talk to each other so seldomly over the course of 3 years. Or that Noah would become so close with Avery but somehow never learn the music, the movie and the foosball table weren't actually interests of hers. If these points were so important to him that it caused him to realise Carrie was actually the girl for him, how did it never come up again over the course of 3 years?
At the end of it, it didn't feel like Noah realised he was not in love with Avery but was actually in love with Carrie. It felt more like he couldn't get a real shot with Avery, so he chose Carrie instead, simply because fate wanted it that way.
The writers should have put more effort in, but it was still enjoyable enough to pass the time.
Most notably, given what a nice guy Noah is portrayed as, and the strong feelings he has for Avery, why would them hooking up lead to a 3 year "friends with benefits" style relationship where they are hardly even friends, and Noah is (as he puts it) "full asshole"? Perhaps more of an explanation was needed.
The writers tried so hard to show that Avery and Noah didn't belong together, that the story lines seemed forced and extreme. In each story line you could have replaced Avery with Carrie, the inevitable soulmate, or any random girl for that matter, and the relationship would have failed. It would have had more of an impact if the different variations of their 3 years together were genuine and more realistic, or if the couple at least had a fair chance, and it ended because it was clear they were just suited better as friends. Or Noah realised he wasn't as happy as he thought he would be. Or Avery couldn't help but fall for Ethan. Or anything other than the doomed-to-fail over exaggerated scenarios the writers chose.
The acting wasn't bad, but it was difficult to care about Noah given how his character traits and feelings seemed to be determined more by his given situation rather than him as a person. The jokes were sparse and alot of the times fell short.
There also wasn't enough of him and Carrie together to warrant her being "the one". It is implausible that Avery's best girl friend (Carrie) and best guy friend (Noah) would see or talk to each other so seldomly over the course of 3 years. Or that Noah would become so close with Avery but somehow never learn the music, the movie and the foosball table weren't actually interests of hers. If these points were so important to him that it caused him to realise Carrie was actually the girl for him, how did it never come up again over the course of 3 years?
At the end of it, it didn't feel like Noah realised he was not in love with Avery but was actually in love with Carrie. It felt more like he couldn't get a real shot with Avery, so he chose Carrie instead, simply because fate wanted it that way.
The writers should have put more effort in, but it was still enjoyable enough to pass the time.