April Fool's Day (2008): A Movie Review

April Fool's Day is a murder mystery starring Taylor Cole as Desiree Cartier. This new "April Fool's" movie revolves around a coming out ball thrown by Taylor Cole. An April Fool's prank goes horrible awry and results in the death of Milan played by Sabrina Aldridge. One year later a killer is stalking Taylor and her friends, killing them off one by one until someone confesses to Milan's murder. Warning: My movie review contains plot spoilers.

I enjoyed this new April Fool's Day. I do remember the original April Fool's Day from 1986 but not perfectly so I am not for sure how much this movie copied from the original. I am sure the original is better (aren't they always?) but I did enjoy this remake. I thought Taylor Cole was excellent as the rich Desiree who loves to pull pranks on everyone. Her brother Blaine was played by Josh Henderson. He also did an excellent job of playing the jerk womanizer who is actually a lot smarter and conniving then he lets on.

The beginning was predictable. Rich snob doesn't like the pretty blonde so she sets up a plot to publicly humiliate her. Only difference is instead of the motivator being a man this time it is all about the money. Desiree doesn't like that her brother controls their estate so she has developed a scheme to gain control of the money. Her scheme works but unfortunately results in the death of Milan. One year later the group of rich friends is murdered one by one, or so it seems. Actually, it is just an elaborate plot by the friends to get Desiree into admitting she killed Milan. The scheme works and Desiree admits her guilt. As all of her so called friends are gloating over her one of the friends accidentally shoots her in the head. That was the twist I wasn't expecting and it totally shocked me.

My only problem with the movie is that the character of Desiree created too much sympathy for herself throughout the movie. She actually seemed regretful over the death of Milan and truly upset after watching each of her friends getting murdered. At the confession scene, she seemed more relieved that her friends were alive then the fact that she just admitted guilt. So now Desiree has truly redeemed herself but yet her friend still shoots her in the head. Yeah it was an "accident" but turning Desiree into a sympathetic character kind of ruined the whole vengeance scene for me. I actually started to feel sorry for Desiree and was shocked when her head was blown off. But I am sure that was the point of the movie.

That being said, I still enjoyed the "B" movie and found it very entertaining. I give the movie 3 out of 5 stars.