MOVIE REVIEW - The Roommate

For heavens sake, can't anyone think of something better to do with 16 million dollars than make The Roommate?

That was the budget of the new thriller that is new in theaters this week. The Roommate is a complete, and total rip-off of Single White Female from some 20 years ago. But the trouble here is, if you're going to make a psycho-thriller, girl come unglued movie. It better not be PG-13 if you want it to be good. But if you want a ton of 14 year olds to go see it, you better make it PG-13. The trouble with that is? No teen is going to find this scary. They see more powerful and harder to watch things on regular TV, video games, or cable.

This is just awful. Leighton Meester stars as Sara. She is a college freshman, and her roommate is Rebbecca, (Minka Kelly). Rebbecca is a goofy nut job, that wants Sara all to herself, so she ends up killing or ruining everyone around Sara to show her affection. With one ridiculous scene after another that no one will really find scary, not even teens, this thing just schlogs along to a merciful ending after 90 torturous minutes.

Coming over from TV, Meester has made two dogs at the movies. Country Strong, and now this. Shame too, she certainly is pretty enough and looks good on film, and needs to get hooked up with the major leagues instead of playing around in the minors. Her character Sara, who was excepted to Brown of the Ivy League in our story, is the dumbest person on earth. In the story, that is the fatal flaw. If she was a dummy, you would expect it to play out the way it does. Ivy League caliber young women would have figured this situation out with no trouble, and known what to do. And it gets worse from there.

TR has no teeth, no guts, no imagination, nothing that makes it a decent movie even of its own genre. Again, this had to be rated R to be substantive, and effective. But such is not the case. There is not payout after you pay in... before you walk in.

This movie steals idea after idea from Single White Female, and tries to convince you it's their idea. Why not just remake Single White Female? It's been 19 years. Instead, ripped off ideas, married to an insulting story line, combined with no real payoff, make this putrid mess one to miss all the way around. Truth is though, this will bring in a ton of cash, So in answering my opening question about the 16 million? It will make it back time and time again. This is not about being good, it's about the money.

The Roommate is simply wimpy, gutless, clueless, and completely non original movie making. Next time, maybe a little less blatantly rip off someones prior work.