The Ultimate Gift (2007)

I read The Ultimate Gift, which this movie is based off of, a couple of years ago. I think that I was maybe ten years old. Even then, I knew that this story was preachy, melodramatic, and not even that well-written. But I could forgive it. The movie is worse. It does what I hate about these kinds of movies, the ones that critics hate and the public loves. But these opinions are for extremely different reasons. These movies aren’t real movies-they’re Sunday school lessons. Film critics judge these as movies, as they should be judged; the people are mostly blind to the incompetence that some of these films show. And this is not said to be an attack, not to be mean to anyone. It is the sheer, cold, truth. It’s the reason that if you ask someone if they like a movie that features strong violence, language, ect; they’ll say they don’t like the film. Not because the film wasn’t a good film, but because they had a moral issue with the film. I am putting this out there right here, right now-movies don’t care what your morals are. The Godfather has a decapitated horse, but yet it is recognized as one of the greatest movies ever made. Movies are movies. If you want a message, or something that will appease children living in an over-protective household, go to a church and borrow one of those DVDs. I’m not necessarily hating on those; they’re just not real movies. They’re messages. And the single biggest ways that a movie can fault is when they care more about getting the message across than making a movie. And that is exactly what The Ultimate Gift does. It tells the story of Jason, a spoiled brat who, when his great-uncle dies, is brought to receive ‘the ultimate gift’, which is basically a series of menial tasks to make the audience have some emotion for the character. Along the way he meets a thirty-something single mother, and her daughter (Abigail Breslin, who is basically the only person I care enough about to research the actor, and it pains me so much that she is in this), who has cancer, a sub-plot that was not in the novel, and is crow-barred in so much that it hurts to watch all of the sappy soap-opera-like things go on in a 2 hour period. This movie is a painful film to watch. Most of the time I was just ticked. But by the end of the film I was angry. At the end, they try to pull every single heart string imaginable. And it just ends up in a ball of anger and hate. This movie did the exact opposite of what it was trying to do. I feel like being a selfish brat just in spite of this film. Because that is all the movie wants. It doesn’t care if it is a good movie; it just lives for the sole purpose of cramming these messages down our throats. And that crosses the line.
1/10