New year's eve - 2011

Mixed feelings. I enjoyed it on some level, but I can't say it was a good movie because it was a mess. Mostly I enjoyed watching Michelle Pfeiffer because I love her, but that's basically it.
First the plot, then the comments: There are many stories that happen during the same day and night in the same city.
1-
Ingrid (Pfeiffer) is not satisfied with her life and makes a big decision: she quits her job and decides she wants to do all her new year's resolutions in one day: on new year's eve, of course so she hires Paul (Zac Efron) for the day, asking him to use his imagination and offering him something in return that makes him drool (don't know what: 4 black envelops, I guess Americans know it so well it doesn't require an explanation?)
2-
Stan (Robert De Niro) is dying at the hospital but refuses treatment and only accepts painkillers; nurse Aimee (Halle Berry) stays with him all the time because he's alone. His dream is to go on the roof to watch the 'famous ball drop': another New York thing.
3-
two couples are competing to win the prize for the first baby born in the new year. They are pregnant Tess (Jessica Biel) with her man (Seth Meyers) and pregnant Grace (Sarah Paulson) with her James (Til Schweiger).
4-
One year ago famous singer Jensen (Bon Jovi) asked Laura (Katherine Heigl) to marry him than he ran away scared. Now he wants to win her back but she refuses to abandon her job and her life to follow him on tour.
5-
Randy (Ashton Kutcher) doesn't care at all for new year's eve. Elise (Lea Michele) is new in the building and very excited for the most important night of her life. They get stuck in the elevator together and get to know each other a bit.
6-
Hailey (Abigail Breslin) is 15 and would like to go to Times Square that night with all her friends so she can kiss her boyfriend at midnight but her divorced mother Kim (Sarah Jessica Parker) 'is not comfortable' with the idea, so they fight and Hailey runs away from home.
7-
Sam's car (Josh Duhamel) breaks down and a family drives him to New York and he tells them his big story: a year ago he met a woman and they had a fling but he never saw her again. She wrote something on a napkin he still has: to meet again a year later on new year's eve, and he's both afraid and excited because he hasn't stopped thinking about her.
8-
Claire (Hilary Swank) is in charge of the rising&dropping of the ball when something goes wrong and she has to solve the big crisis ..

Now, where do I start: Bon Jovi seemed there to promote a new album and when he wasn't singing he simply put on his 'what do I do now?' expression all the time. Laura's love/hate feelings were boring: good thing that there was Sofia Vergara, very funny, to revive the story.
Randy's story was boring too: two strangers talking about their life and sort of falling for each other. It doesn't work very well: how long were they in there? Because a lot goes on in the meantime, basically all the movie, and yet she was hurrying to work and when she got out she  still was in time for the show...  she was to be a backup singer for Jensen :-/ This whole story seemed to be a filler waiting to hear her sing :-/
De Niro's story... well, I've known for quite a while now that he would accept any job, but here what I don't understand is why they called him. He doesn't add anything to the character, and I could not 'feel' the character at all. Since there were so many stories, this one only got 1/8 of the available time, of course, and that was not enough to 'feel the characters' enough to forget we are watching De Niro.
Halle Berry had a side story for herself, because when she could leave his side (his daughter had come to him) she put on a beautiful dress, closed herself in a room and opened her computer to speak with her man at war. I think that deserved a line or two more.
They could have her mention something , like how long it is since she met her husband, how much she misses seeing him or that she would sort-of spend new year's eve with him, leaving us to wonder why until the end. Anyway, they didn't.
Duhamel's story: OMG I'd say, but not in a good way. A woman one year ago asked him "how's your heart?" and promised to meet him again if life's troubles let her; "who says that?" and that's exactly what I was asking myself, actually :-/
Swank's story: well, she was nice, and she made a great speech: false and improvised to gain time, she spoke of taking out time to think of our mistakes/regrets/people we love. It was heard by many people: Bon Jovi thought about his story and decideed to give up his tour to stay with her. She was in his arms in a second, without a single question, so we don't know what'll happen. Will he give up his career? Or keep singing but never making another tour in his life? Or will he miss just this one tour but he'll do the next one? who knows... :-/
Back to Swank: she needed time to solve the technical problem with the ball, and to repair it she called Kominsky (Hector Elizondo) and the whole thing was rather silly and quite contemporary at the same time. He arrived like a god, saying he had been fired because he had pointed out the faults in the system. She even moved herself and she left Kominsky in charge to run to her father (De Niro, big surprise :-/ ). So she knew he was dying and was fretting about a ball and some lights!!! :-/
She goes to him and steals her way to the roof to let him see the ball drop as he dreamed, then he died.
The teenage girl: naturally she thought she was old enough to do anything on her own, but they made it look like her mom was being unreasonable and over-protective! Sure, New York is famous to be the safest place on Earth, like all biiiig cities of the world: the perfect place for a teenage girl to walk at night... :-/ I found the mom very reasonable.
Amazing how her friends managed to get to the front row, and how she managed to get there at the exact moment when her boyfriend got kissed by another girl, and how her mom had managed to get there and find her and see her right then ready to comfort her... now she agreed to let her go with her friends and Hailey made up with her boyfriend. The only nice bit was the woman spying on the kids :-p a girl's mom, I think. :-p
At this point what happened? SJParker went home to dress for a party and took a carriage (!) to meet Duhamel! She was the mystery woman and he had waited till now to meet his princess... :-/ boring.
Pfeiffer's story was the one I liked. She played a sort of Selina before her catwoman-days, and with them we took a tour guide of New York City, basically, but it was nice. I liked that to 'save a life' he made her adopt a puppy :-) he also turns out to be Parker's brother, and so silly as to say on the phone that Ingrid was 'pathetic but in a cute way' so she felt sad and called the thing off but still giving him his reward. He felt bad and went back to her to finish her list, then they said goodbye, and at midnight she was at Times Square with nobody to kiss until he came and kissed her in a very, very bad scene.
Amazing how they all managed to find one another in such a big city and in such a crowded place......
As if it wasn't enough how many known actors they put together, I also saw Matthew Broderick telling Swank she might lose her job if she doesn't fix the ball-thing; Carla Cugino in the pregnant-women story, and Jim Belushi who repaired the elevator the exact moment when Kutcher was about to kiss the girl, interrupting them, so the guy had to put a coat on his pajama and he went to kiss her at Times Square, where she sang solo when Bon Jovi went to make up with his Heigl... :-/
There was also Cary Elwes playing De Niro's doctor ( I did not recognized him at all) and Alyssa Milano playing a nurse in that same hospital. That explains a lot: with so many names in the movie, they thought the plot was an optional...

ITA capodanno a New York