The cornball cutesie-cutesie title is the least of this film's problems. It's another coming-of-age story, where teens have romantic encounters, and learn about harsh realities of life because everything goes wrong in those encounters. That can be a good or bad formula, depending on what the writer and director do with it. This "Pizza" is cooked up with cardboard cutouts; consequently ending up as hard to swallow as cardboard.
The plot is utterly predictable, and slammed down your throat with about as much subtlety in its approach as the coming-of-age of an atomic bomb. And what a bomb this is. The film tries to be a romantic comedy in spots with awkward exaggeration; this also fails. The only saving grace of this movie is the always dependable Annabeth Gish. But she is surrounded by unbelievably bad co-stars. Julia Roberts is; well, Julia Roberts, and that is not a good thing (to be fair, she does appear to at least be trying). The overacting guys that run in and out are inept and annoying. The person playing the third waitress apparently was never heard from again. The film ends nowhere, pretty much where it started.
Where do they get the gimmicky so-deep-and-clever title? To rope in box office dollars of course--in the story, a pizza parlor. And a town. Are they kidding? Ugh.
There's nothing mystic about it. Mystic Pizza tastes bland and stale.
The plot is utterly predictable, and slammed down your throat with about as much subtlety in its approach as the coming-of-age of an atomic bomb. And what a bomb this is. The film tries to be a romantic comedy in spots with awkward exaggeration; this also fails. The only saving grace of this movie is the always dependable Annabeth Gish. But she is surrounded by unbelievably bad co-stars. Julia Roberts is; well, Julia Roberts, and that is not a good thing (to be fair, she does appear to at least be trying). The overacting guys that run in and out are inept and annoying. The person playing the third waitress apparently was never heard from again. The film ends nowhere, pretty much where it started.
Where do they get the gimmicky so-deep-and-clever title? To rope in box office dollars of course--in the story, a pizza parlor. And a town. Are they kidding? Ugh.
There's nothing mystic about it. Mystic Pizza tastes bland and stale.