Really Surprised!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I watched this movie just because it was on the TV and I got nothing better to do. And this is the typical Christmas holiday movie, but it is entertaining and funny.It tells the story of various members from the Cooper family and how they get to arrive to the Christmas Dinner. As in this kind of movies, there are a lot of characters and you might connect better with ones than others. For example, I think Amanda Seyfried here was misused, and she could have give more, as well as others like the little kids needed less time on-screen (that's also usual in this movies). The characters I liked the most are Eleanor portrayed by a beautiful Olivia Wilde and Sam portrayed by John Goodman. It's not that the acting is superb but for me they were some of the best of the movie.Of course it's not a perfect movie. Since the beginning you probably will guess how it will end. It's full of clichés of romantic-holiday movies but it's still very enjoyable. Watch it if you want to have a good time, and I think this movie is specially made for Christmas time, so better if you watch in that time.

This is one of the worst Christmas movies I have ever seen. It perplexes me why a great cast of a great calibre would accept to participate in a movie like that. The movie has no clear story line. It is predictable and it is quite cringy. Usually, I write the reviews immediately after I watch a movie but in this case some days have past so I am therefore unable to comment in detail and the things that I especially did not like. But, I know that I expected a great Christmas movie and was let down. The energies of characters do not fit with one another. It is a strange connection between characters so the connection feels weird and forced. I would not recommend this movie to anyone who expects an enjoyable Christmas movie.

Why does a holiday movie have to be so complex that you have to jot down notes to get a better understanding of what's being thrown at us? The worst case is that even after all that note taking there's not a single element that's even the most noteworthy. That's what I felt after watching "Love the Coopers", a film that delves into the lives of a dysfunctional family during the holiday season, but we end up lost in the shuffle of characters without proper introduction and the details about them are virtually non-existent. Director Jessie Nelson and screenwriter Steven Rogers plaster on underfed events juxtaposed with tiring levels of slapstick. However as the film unfolds we learn less about the characters and the film just settles on making them very unlikable.It's Christmastime at the Cooper clan and the parents San and Charlotte (John Goodman and Diane Keaton) are facing marital problems after 40 years of marriage. To contribute to their marital problems they still manage to bring up the subject of an incident that happened 30 years ago. Daughter Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) refuses to go home for the holidays and befriends an army soldier named Joe (Jake Lacey), but she uses him as a scapegoat to get her mother off her back. Son Hank (Ed Helms) has problems in his hand as he's going through a nasty divorce while also facing unemployment while he reminisces about his days working at a department store. Charlotte's much younger sister, Emma (Marisa Tomei) has been arrested on account of kleptomania while becoming very chatty with a cop (Anthony Mackie). Finally grandfather Bucky (Alan Arkin) is quite passionate with a diner waitress Ruby (Amanda Seyfried) and is heartbroken that she's quitting her job in search for other endevours.With an ensemble cast, we were hoping to get a decent introduction with the characters, but in the end, we never really know the characters and all the dramatic tensions just envelop without even a warning from its audience. It seems that each family member is used as a unintentional plot twist to keep us guessing which is all right for a mystery film, but not a film intended as a holiday themed film. For the next 100 minutes of this movie, we are forced to guess who's who and this warm, friendly holiday film is anything but warm or friendly. Even the script has us left in limbo like they describe Ruby as a Cooper, but she's a character outside the family. Much the same goes to Aunt Fishy (June Squibb) and the family dog Rags (Steve Martin) who's only purpose in this movie is to look cute and used as a decoy for an occasional fart joke to those who love potty humour."Love the Coopers" isn't hard to decipher, but the script is very opaque from the lacking character development to the forceful efforts in adding some fantasy towards the story as each character reflects upon their past triumphs and failures. Everything about this film feels randomized from unconventional characters getting more screen time to more prominent ones being shut out like an afterthought and to comic timing virtually non-existent. Sure Nelson provides the angst and uncertainties of the holiday season, to illustrate that the holidays does not always bring out the best in everyone, but in the end the film is very labouring and vague it feels like this film lasted longer than the duration that the editing was too rushed and way too obvious.It was the first time in 15 years that Nelson directed a film, the classic "I Am Sam", and I can the rust in her in this film. The acting was very awkward, the score was sloppily done by Nick Urata and the whole Christmas prone visuals can be quite painfully overdone. The overall feeling of the movie is more sugary than two dozen boxes of Christmas cookies and Steve Martin's voicing the inner thoughts of Rags the dog was completely wasted since he's a character of little thought let alone importance. The human emotions are meagre combined with scenes that feel more a sitcom than a movie and very limited family interaction, this holiday film is the definitive lump of cold black coal. In the end this movie has nothing to love about the Coopers and doesn't know what it wants to be or how to celebrate the holidays. This is one turkey you can stuff it.

Any number of the films we now think of as unassailable holiday classics -- Christmas in Connecticut, White Christmas, even It's a Wonderful Life -- were dismissed as corny and formulaic in their original reviews, so it's no surprise that Meet the Coopers met the same fate. But I suspect time will be kind to this one: it's warm without being gooey, the humor is sharp and observant, the ensemble is top-notch, and the soundtrack is quite lovely.If, like me, you're a fan of the dysfunctional-family Christmas comedy (The Ref, La Bûche, A Christmas Tale), this one may well sneak up on you and enter your annual holiday rotation. If I ever get to update my holiday film guide "Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas," this one would definitely go in.