st. cloud

charlie st. cloud's highest point was when this line was uttered by sam st. cloud: "... no one ever gets to see what could've been." other than that, it was all too clouded, just a vehicle to allow zac efron to graduate from being disney's singing and dancing high school boy. while the audience can and might relate to the guilt charlie felt when sam died, the film's take on charlie's dilemma of keeping his promise to sam to play baseball with him every night fall or going after the girl he loves was cheesily presented and overly predictable.

zac efron tried to infuse whatever emotions his character ought to feel but what transpired was a combination of the filmmaker's shallow imagination and corny lines. the concept of being back from the dead and being able to speak and interact with ghosts were put to misuse. competent actors like ray liotta and kim basinger had little scenes and you'd be left to wonder why claire (basinger), charlie and sam's mom, had little to do with charlie's ultimate decision to finally live life and come back to reality. the movie kept with its hollywood romanticized concept of romantic love as the definitive and supreme answer to one's folly, slump and protracted despair. once again, another material that induces the idea that to be able to move forward, one has to find that one true love and it's ok to wallow on misery because eventually, one will find his "tess".