'New Year's Eve' review

Seth Meyers and Jessica Biel (Credit: Andrew Schwartz/Warner Bros.)

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Two singleton strangers (Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele) get stuck in their building's elevator. A scrappy courier (Zac Efron) helps a lonely office drone (Michelle Pfeiffer) fulfill her resolution list. A remorseful rock star (Jon Bon Jovi) tries to win back the bitter fiancée (Katherine Heigl) he jilted. Two pregnant couples (Jessica Biel and Seth Meyers, Sarah Paulson and Til Schweiger) slug it out to deliver the year's first toddler. They're all among the many pieces in a jigsaw puzzle of unlikely hook-ups and missed connections in New York City on New Year's Eve.

The buzz: But wait, there's more in this gluttonous display of Hollywood's ongoing appetite for ginormous star-studded casts! Oscar winners? Halle Berry and Robert De Niro! Tweener? Abigail Breslin! Hot dude and stylish gal? Josh Duhamel and Sarah Jessica Parker! Spicy Latina with the hee-hee accent? Sofia Vergara! (Who else?) If this all sounds eerily reminiscent of last year's star-studded "Valentine's Day," that's because both were directed Garry Marshall, who seems to be systematically tearing through every holiday. What's next? "Labor Day"? "Hump Day"? "Snow Day"?

The verdict: When will Hollywood learn: more does not always equal merrier. "New Year's Eve" rings in the yuks with a whimper instead of a bang, saddled with painfully contrived plotlines, grating cast members and eye-rolling dialogue that'll leave you laughing in all the wrong places. (At least it’s entertaining in that way.) Clearly, this bento box of super-casts was studio-engineered to hit every demographic quadrant. Each cast member gets his or her screen time, prances in front of the camera, boo-hoos or goo-goos their eyes out, and then makes way for the next one. Among the questions "New Year's Eve" raises: How many Oscar winners does it take to screw up a movie? (That would be three: Hilary Swank is also here, playing the boss in charge of the Times Square Ball Drop. She drops the ball—get it?) And didn't Heigl already work with half these actors in one soul-crushing rom-com or another? (Yep, Hollywood can't resist self-cannibalizing an already emaciated stock of interchangeable rom-com actors and ideas.) Ponder all of that as you run for cover from lines like, "May the best vajayjay win!" Yes, someone says that. Meyers scores some decent laughs as a wickedly competitive baby daddy, but even with a cast this sparkly, you'll find few fireworks in "New Year's Eve."

Did you know? Somebody give a loyalty medal to Hector Elizondo. The ever-likable character actor—who cameos as a Russian repairman—is a close chum of director Marshall and has been in every movie directed by Marshall, stretching back to 1982. Yes, all 17 of them. Does Elizondo get a gold watch when he retires?

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