FilmSnobReviews

Title: The Perfect Date
MPAA Rating: TV-14
Director: Chris Nelson
Starring: Noah Centineo, Laura Marano, Odiseas Georgiadis
Runtime: 1 hr 29 mins

What It Is: Brooks Ratigan (Centineo) is a pretty smart kid with a very lofty goal. He sees Yale in his future but money, as is sometimes the case, is a bit tight. In order to offset this Brooks has his friend Murph (Georgiadis) to put a recently discovered skill to use. He’s crafted an app for him that lets women who need a date to something, any sort of event acquire his services. Things don’t exactly go as he would’ve hoped.

What We Think: Putting it bluntly the entire premise of this film is utterly ludicrous. Women are paying for this service? Like they really don’t have ANYONE else to go with them to a rodeo? Noah Centineo is the absolute Prince of the “Netflix RomCom”. This is for sure not as good as To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, which I consider top tier in that subgenre. No this is a script with no discernable likeability. Built on a thin and aggressively annoying premise. I’m quite certain Partick Dempsey did this better in the ’80s. For all, he’s worth Centineo remains just a little bit charming enough to get you through the 89 mins.

Our Grade: D, The sort of slog that works as mindless entertainment is simultaneously bad cinema. It’s cute but only for the sake of cuteness. Its too safe and standard to be anything but mediocre and if the script were at least up to that standard then perhaps a better grade would follow suit. As it stands I cannot recommend the film on merit, or quality for that manner. What I can do is tell you if you’d like some mindless fun there’s that and only that to be had here.