I can’t believe I watched You Changed My Life in GB1 yesterday… Opening night and, more than an hour before the screening time, the line was already so fuggin’ long. We were s’posed to watch at GB3 but the tickets were sold out already. (BTW, we saw Christian Bautista there)

The movie was… ehh. Well, you know how I feel about pinoy romantic comedies, especially those that use song titles as movie titles. It’s just indicative of the amount of originality and creativity infused in the film. The only semblance of “creativity” was how the producers shamelessly promoted John’s and Sarah’s endorsements in the movie: Belo, Greenwich, Biogesic, and Jollibee. Branding, tsktsk, low budget obviously. I tried to keep an open mind, believe me… but the movie was everything I expected it to be: shallow, cliche-filled, and just plain ohhhh pleaaaaaaase. Typical. Some things just never change.

When John Lloyd first appeared on screen, the collective “awww” from the audience was too hard to pass up. POTEK. I just don’t get all the fuss about that guy. He’s neither cute nor hot - in fact, he even has a daddy-ish vibe about him and I don’t see the appeal. He’s not even a good actor; Rayver Cruz, Joross Gamboa, and Gio Alvarez (aba kilala ko naman sila, so don’t call me an elitist) outperform him by a mile. For one, John Lloyd’s English diction needs much improvement. He’s been in the acting industry quite a long time already and I don’t understand why his acting doesn’t come off as natural. He doesn’t transcend the role and the discriminatory viewer is always aware that he is just acting.

Sarah Geronimo, on the other hand, has a natural sincerity about her. It’s hard not to emphatize with her character - not because I can relate with her experiences, again, ohhhh pleaaaaaase. But her quirkiness is simply contagious and I can’t think of a better actress for her role (although that’s probably because I haven’t actually watched a lot of pinoy movies in this genre).

From the perpetually annoying “bebe ko… bebe ko? bebe ko! bebe ko…” to the hilarious POWER HUG! POWER KISS!… maybe the movie wasn’t so bad after all, props to Sarah, Rayver, Joross, and Gio. But please bonk me on the head if you catch me about to waste my time on another one of those films.

But then again, at the end of the day, it’s who I watch it with that really matters.