When We First Met Netflix Movie Review

When We First Met (2018)

Watch When We First Met on Netflix
Written by: John Whittington
Directed by: Ari Sandel
Starring: Adam Devine, Alexandra Daddario, Shelley Hennig
Rated: TV-14
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Plot
Noah spends the perfect night with Avery only to become just friends,but he gets the opportunity to travel through time and alter that night over and over again until he gets everything perfect.

Verdict
This isn't a bad movie, but it's so cliche and predictable. It's a synthesis of other movies, but it makes no attempt to be unique and the core logic of the movie makes no sense. It's a tried and true rom-com plot that throws in time travel with no thought whatsoever.
Skip it.

Review
Noah is at the engagement party of a good friend Avery, but he wishes she was more than just a friend. We see how they met three years earlier and are left wondering how they ended up as just friends.

The movie is cheesy with stilted interactions. This gets from point a to point b without worrying whether it makes sense. I can buy the time traveling photo booth and the fact that it casts Noah back three years ago to the fateful day when he became just friends with Avery, but there's no reason why he goes back to 2017. No reason other than for a few cheap laughs.

Noah goes back to 2014 and instead of changing a few key details, he goes all out armed with his personal knowledge of Avery to impress her. It backfires. The movie bounces back and forth between 2014 and 2017 as Noah has changed the timeline. He has no knowledge of what's transpired in three years and sometimes changes make him a very different person. It's loose logic. At one point he becomes a jerk, and we're led to believe he just faked it for three years, but it's a question the movie never considered.

This isn't the movie to address this, but it's predatory for Noah to influence history with the knowledge he has of Avery. It's a cheat, and even if he did succeed, would he just live a lie to please her? The movie isn't promoting this is how to win women, and at least the best path for Noah is the selfless one.

This does have a few twists to the story, but they can't overcome the lapse in logic. Noah can't remember the three years when he makes a change, but the movie contradicts that when he begins speaking Chinese. The changes in the timeline are simple and uncompelling. It has some parallels with The Butterfly Effect with Ethan instantly changing the timeline. That wasn't a good movie, but it was consistent. As a rom-com, this is slightly different, but as a movie it's off putting.