So I watched 'The Roommate' the other day - figuring it to be a mindless but entertaining horror flick. Unfortunately it was pretty crappy - as EW.com puts it "The Roommate' isn't even bad enough to be good." Here is why I didn't like it:
1. Obviously, it is unoriginal - That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be bad. Single White Female was released almost 20 years ago - it was about time for an update. The problem is that they don't really update it at all. If you think about how much has changed in 20 years with technology alone and how much easier it is to stalk people and become obsessive (cell phones, facebook, GPS tracking). There is a lot to work with here - yet the film pretty much avoids all of these things and relies on characters forgetting their phones and the stalker using her time to draw the same picture of her obsession over and over again. It was just such a waisted opportunity.
2. Rebecca isn't all that scary - Creepy...sure. She does stare at people, which I guess makes others uncomfortable but nowadays turning the lights on and off while someone showers then attacking them by ripping out their belly ring is kind of tame. Today's standard of horror films is that people need to die or at least more brutally attacked. In the end, she didn't even kill anyone - except a very innocent little kitten (I would have preferred a person). Oh wait...did she kill the ex-boyfriend? I think that happened....but it was so freaking tame that I don't really remember it!! Therefore....it doesn't even count in my mind.
3. Minka Kelly = J Lo without personality - they look alike, they sound alike and Minka is able to pull off that "adorable,clumsy female" role that J Lo perfected many times - she just doesn't have the same presence on screen that J Lo commands. Her character is downright boring in this film. The only thing that we know about her is that she is a fashion design student but there are 2 things wrong with that: First, anyone serious about fashion design would go to school in NYC not LA. Second, I assume that Minka's character is supposed to be "stylish" yet there is nothing stylish about her (adding a scarf and a fedora to every outfit doesn't make the cut). Her character very astutely states that money cannot by you style, but it can buy you a stylist - yet this film was in desperate need of a new one.
4. Apparently, they limited the casting to "must be an actor/actress on a current CW show" - Aside from Minka and the super hot Cam Gigandet, everyone else is from the CW. The obvious CW actress is Leighton Meester (who was actually the best part of the film - aside from some over-acting towards the end). She brought some of her CW cohorts such as: the blond girl from Hellcats, Nina Dobrev and Katerina Graham from The Vampire Diaries and the hot guy from 90210 (not Teddy...the other one). The thing is - they underused all of them. The blond girl (I am way too lazy to look up her name...Aly Mich something...) was actually really funny in Easy A and I was looking forward to her being the same here, Nina Dobrev played a pivotal role of Maria (Rebecca's former obsession) but they never really explain what happened aside from giving Nina one line "We were never friends". Um....ok....then what were you? Katerina disappeared after about 20 minutes and hot guy had one scene (at least he was shirtless).
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