When We First Met Review

When We First Met falls apart very quickly, it sets up a promising narrative and then just doesn't deliver on it. It also takes a formula that is too well known at this point and doesn't do anything fresh with it. It basically comes down to a concept of whether things are meant to be. This core ideal is focused upon as the lead Noah (Adam Devine) travels in time in order to get his first meeting with the one he loves right. The concept somehow gets voided over time and by the end it really doesn't make much sense.

You get an idea of how things were headed early, yet it still doesn't make practical sense. I won't spoil any aspects, but When We First Met really doesn't truly explore the time travel mechanics. The lead gets the idea of it instantly and only tries a few times to see what happens. What's distinct is the ability to see how the events play out and tweak things from there once more. There just wasn't much to it and the consequences didn't seem too harsh and it only lightly touches upon what could have used more fleshing out.

I didn't feel that the film was anything too special visually. The whole party scene that is shown multiple times is visually pleasing, but not much else is. There really wasn't much to the scenes in general mostly being shot in the same spots. They were also very intimate in their setting so you didn't get a sense of scale.

Other issues I had aside from the rather weak plot points are that we don't see many perspectives. Each jump in time only grants minor moments or thoughts from others that give the smallest of details as to what's happened during the recent time skip. It definitely could have used the time more effectively as again the start had some promise.

The Conclusion

I really wasn't impressed with When We First Met, it's not really a comedy and it's certainly barely romantic. It's purely something I watched and will forget after. The narrative was rather weak with points of interest that were only barely touched upon. Every other side character aside from the lead was poorly developed and you never really got a sense of what was happening in each different situation.

You could see some ideas as to why it might not be perfect though it was all so brief. The acting also wasn't anything too amazing with some stiff moments and mostly casual talk with Devine being amazed at everything. Whether it was a stunned amazement or a happy one, it all came across as the same. Really wasn't that great of a watch taking an interesting concept that's popular recently and doing nothing special with it.

When We First Met Review at Home with Streamed Viewing

Rating Overall: 3.5