This is a parody of rom-com and a good parody imo will maintain genre. it's stupid easy to make a comedy parody of everything. See things like Epic Movie and Date Movie. But a good parody of horror films will also itself be a horror film see _Scream_ and _Happy Death Day_ both excellent horror films that lampoon aspects of horror films. I think what sets this movie apart from other parodies is that it does a very effective job at being a romcom. It doesn't take itself seriously which is what you expect but there's a level of sincerity that you don't expect.

It's super hard to pull off a song and dance number in a movie and not have it be super cheesy. Few films do this that aren't all about singing or dancing (_Step Up_, _Pitch Perfect_). But the number in this movie manages to be legimately fun which surprised me. Rebel Wilson is Rebel Wilson most people hate her I find her charming enough. Hemsworth plays a one note character that's on screen enough to be funny with his constant "You're beguiling" but not so much that you get annoyed with him. If I had known Priyanka Chopra was going to be in the movie I might have skipped it. I'm not a fan of her as a person. Also I learned she looks terrible in extreme close ups. When you pull out just a little bit she shines. She's a good looking person, a mostly decent actor and she has a top notch voice.

If I cared about Adam Devine personally I'd be scared for his career becoming one note but here he's pretty toned down. Which helps him a lot.

Plotwise I have a big problem with the opening scene after the prologue where Nat has to get a note off her door and give it to her neighbor. It's filmed so badly you can barely tell what's going on. WHich is that he's hot and girls are constantly leaving note for him but they don't know which door is his so she ends up with notes on her door. It's a weird problem that makes no sense but at least they do a callback to explain it at the end. But beyond that the plot doesn't try so hard to make sense. Which is a good thing. It's just walking the path of the romcom you the audience (more than Nat) try to figure out which tropes are going to make it in and which ones will get left out.

It was a fun ride that didn't overstay it's welcome. A light airy movie that didn't leave you empty. Congratulations we have a date movie.

This movie stole content from Lindsay Ellis so it feels appropriate to use a Lindsay Ellisism to open this review:

Thanks, I hate it.

This feels like the kind of film that would be written by the sort of people that didn’t get the satire of 500 Days of Summer and complain about it’s use of the manic pixie dream girl trope.

This film feels the need to have Rebel Wilson explain all of the jokes directly to the camera, which only emphasises how unfunny the jokes are. The concept of being trapped in a romantic comedy world is not inherently a bad one, in the right hands you can get great satire out of that idea. This does not feel like satire but more like it’s just a bad rom-com.

The problem really is with the fact that it plays the idea for comedy but doesn’t offer enough laughs to justify itself. Where as something like 500 Days of Summer would introduce harsh realities into the rom-com formula in order to criticise the genre here you just get the exact same thing, with the same conclusion and the same watered-down, primary school message about love and self worth but Rebel Wilson makes bad one-liners about montages and slow motion.

I’m writing this review just hours after watching the film and honestly have nothing more to say, for a satire this had shockingly little impact on me.

Just skip this one.

I like the "trapped inside a movie/tv show" concept. I've seen it done better elsewhere, but it's still pretty good here. And I very much enjoyed the way it plays out at the end. Actually I think the last time I was this warm on a romcom, it was _When We First Met_. Another Netflix original that I liked for virtually identical reasons...

_Isn't it Romantic_ still isn't my sort of film. I just don't gravitate towards this genre. But It's **better**. Almost makes it feel like we're collectively going in the right direction as an industry. I'm sure we're not, but it's nice to live in that delusion.

_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._