Charlie St. Cloud
If Zac Efron wants to be taken seriously by moviegoers who aren’t 13-year-old girls, he’s going to have to do more than sit-ups. Charlie St. Cloud is the High School Musical star’s latest attempt at serious acting, but it offers little to redeem itself to anyone other than his prepubescent fan base.

Efron plays Charlie, a college-bound boy who miraculous survives a car accident that kills his kid brother. Following his brush with the other side, Charlie seems to be granted the ability to communicate with the dead. Abandoning his college ambitions, Charlie takes up a job in a graveyard, where he has daily hangout sessions with the spectral version of his brother. Things get complicated for the siblings as Charlie finds a love interest and a Nicholas Sparks-esque romance develops. What follows is a mess without explanation, that may or may not result in Zac Efron banging a ghost.

Director Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down, 17 Again), who seems to have his sights set on becoming a poor man's John Hughes, again focuses on the difficulties surrounding the transition from youth to the grown-up world. He manages to throw in some pretty visuals, but it’s not enough to distract from the weak plot and Efron’s under-developed acting chops.

Unlike The Sixth Sense, Charlie St. Cloud is a supernatural tale that doesn’t play by its own rules and, by the conclusion, you’re left trying to figure out an incoherent mess with vague religious overtones that seems to have no sensible explanation.

Efron spends most of the film sailing or working in the graveyard, both which provided him ample opportunities to shed his shirt. If that’s enough for you, you may be satisfied. Otherwise, Charlie St. Cloud is a silly and sentimental supernatural wannabe tearjerker that can’t play by its own rules.

—Eric Pulsifer
 


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