This is a film which features a lengthy, suburban Miami foot-chase setpiece between Kevin Hart and Ken Jeong, soundtracked by Gloria Estefan. Close your eyes and imagine that. No, close them again, and imagine it again. The panting. The shrieking. The gratuitous bikini shots. Nowhere near edgy enough to earn a 15 certificate, but nothing you'd want to show to a 12yr old, either. With Gloria Estefan singing at you all the while. It encapsulates everything that Ride Along 2 is, perfectly.
One of the worst things about the movie is being forced to remember Ride Along, and concede that it was better than this; a film which I by no means hated but could likewise muster very little enthusiasm for. And so, two years have passed and director Tim Story returns to his established continuity with Kevin 'Haha, I'm short, that's funny' Hart and Ian 'Bullshit' Cube. An uncalled for follow-up to a film nobody wanted, like a head-on car crash between GTA: Vice City and Saved By The Bell, in which nobody survived who was able to deliver a joke. Or write a joke. Or identify a joke.
As with its predecessor, Ride Along 2 isn't awful for its entire runtime (several smirks, although no laughs I'm afraid), but the concept isn't even trying any more; a watered-down version of something which was diluted to begin with. Formulaic yet unfocused, even its headlining stars look bored. I swear to god that there's a computer whirring away in the back offices of Universal Pictures churning out screenplays of comedically mismatched buddy-cop pairings that begin with glowering glances and shrieking, and end with a car-chase/shoot-out in a shipping yard. It's not even a particularly powerful computer. It doesn't need to be.
Best scene: The Ice Cube character arches an eyebrow and says to the Kevin Hart character, "Do you ever listen to the shit that come out of yo' mouth?"*1, to which Hart wordlessly slides a full-length mirror in front of Cube; a mirror which has the cover of Straight Outta Compton sellotaped in the top corner with a sad-face sticker on it.
Hart arches an eyebrow in return and walks off set…
I have no idea. Probably not even Ride Along, to be fair.
This is, at its absolute best, a film to get from the £3 shelf in Asda to watch while you're getting drunk with as many friends in the room as possible, so that your minimal financial outlay is still spread over a wide audience.
I have no idea.
Nope.
Yep.
Nope.
Level 2: Ride Along 2 stars Olivia Munn who appeared in last January's underwhelming comedy of choice Mortdecai alongside Ewan 'Kenobi' McGregor.
*1 This part genuinely happens. The man whose production company was partially responsible for the film keeps a straight face while his character criticises the scripted lines of another.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
…and here on the right you can see National Lampoon's Animal House, which is what people used to laugh at in the old days before comedy movies were invented*1. Over-acted, under-written and directed with the surgical precision of an elephant falling down a lift-shaft, this is the quintessential film to watch while you're drunk, as a teenager, in 1978. Any missing parts of that combination will result in disappointment, the scale of which is directly commensurate with the absent factors.
This is by no means an 'awful' film (even though it has plenty of awful things about it), but it really hasn't aged well. At all. Both the scripted and visual gags are broad to the point of completely vague, with long lingering pauses acting as a substitute for punchlines, and I can't quite work out if the overall clunkiness is down to a) the film being a 1978 frat-com when I'm used to the more boisterous, dynamic ones from the 90s and 00s, b) this being a National Lampoon's movie ie SNL writ-large, or c) the film being directed by John 'Burke and Hare' Landis. As above, I think all three play a contributing factor.
The film's not completely without merit, of course, but the few moments where it succeeds are through a certain naive charm rather than any comedic muscle. But the fact that I didn't laugh doesn't change its undeniable influence over the comedy genre for the last four decades.
The thought occurred to me that Animal House could work much better for 2015 if it was remade. This was immediately followed by the thought that in the intervening years, it essentially has been remade, countless times; sometimes better, but often far, far worse. This is one of those films whose lasting appeal is little more than a warm, glowing nostalgia rather than the work itself. A nostalgia you just don't have if you wait 37 years before you watch it.
Animal House feels like a drunk painstakingly setting up a joke then repeatedly forgetting the punchline. Actually no, it pretty much is that…
And in the upstairs-pillow-fight scene, how are silhouettes of the girls being cast at the window if the curtains are open when Blutarsky climbs the ladder? Write your fucking film, you morons. Although the fact that no-one spots a fully illuminated face less than a foot away from the window suggests that perhaps the screenplay isn't supposed to be taken literally…
Somehow, never.
Well, it's on the list of 'film arguments to have in the pub' now…
Only if you're drunk.
And a teenager.
In 1978.
Oh, that there was…
Animal House stars Karen Allen, who played Marion Ravenwood in those Indy films opposite Harrison 'Solo' Ford.
*1 1979's The Life Of Brian was the first recorded Comedy Film™, of course, and many more were created over the next five years and artificially aged and copyrighted to much earlier dates in an attempt to mask Hollywood's embarrassment.
It's a lie which was sold so successfully that it's now largely accepted as truth, albeit erroneously.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Y'know, snarky comments about Liam Neeson as an alcoholic estranged father, punching and shooting people in a leather jacket are becoming almost as clichéd as films featuring Liam Neeson as an alcoholic estranged father, punching and shooting people in a leather jacket. Although despite today's neatly-timed announcement*1, Liam shows no sign of stopping just now, so I don't see why I should either.
Mr Neeson's latest (well…) offering bestows upon him the honour of The Opening Line. As he lies bleeding and surrounded by shrubbery, his sonorous transatlantic grumble delivers the absolute gem, "I've done terrible things in my life… things for which I can never be forgiven", with either an over-indulgence of self-awareness, or none whatsoever. I can't be sure which it is. Poor Liam is on autopilot for the entire movie, and Joel (Robocop) Kinnaman can't seem to muster the likeability required to be An Actual Protagonist. The screenplay makes no attempt to offer us anyone else to really root for, so it's just a case of sitting back and watching the claret.
The plot of the film takes place over the course of 16 hours, and the episodic nature of the father/son adventure does make it feel a bit like a mission-arc from Grand Theft Auto (complete with expository cut-scenes, naturally). The script itself seems to have been compiled by a computer working from a database of action-movie catchphrases and platitudes, hoping that the mumbling of the actors will fudge the audience's aural déjà vu. Strangely, one of the best scenes is the downtown New York chase, in which Neeson tries to ram the patrol-car of corrupt police officers off the road. Coincidentally, it's also a scene with almost no dialogue for four minutes.
Despite my moaning, Run All Night isn't 'awful'. As bullet-ridden action-thrillers go, it's actually on the better side of alright until dear old Liam keeps playing His Film Character. He's supported by Ed Harris (who can't seem to believe what he's doing), Joel Kinnaman (see above) and Boyd Holbrook, who puts in a reasonably interesting turn until he's killed in the first act (that's a plot point. It's in the trailer. It's not a spoiler.) The cast are so elderly, listless, or elderly and listless that Common*2 has to be drafted in during the second act to do some of the heavy lifting (and in fairness, Liam and Common duelling with flaming table-legs was rather nice, I thought).
Despite some interesting stylised transitions between scenes, there's really very little here that you haven't seen before. The film doesn't do anything too badly, it just doesn't do anything new. Although it doesn't really promise to, either. And when you're asking people to hand over a tenner to watch it? That's going to be a stumbling block.
With a smarter script and more inspired casting, Run All Night could have been just the thing. As it stands, it's another also-ran in the Liam Neeson box set of mediocrity.
Actual fact: Run All Night's distributor, Warner Bros UK, have thought long and hard, and decided that a 15-rated violent revenge-thriller should be preceded by the trailers for Home, Spongebob and Cinderella. No, seriously. Who the hell do they think is watching this movie? Well, me, evidently since I plan on watching at least two of those three movies. Although I was going to anyway, so…
Oh, and by all means write your screenplay and call your hardened, grizzled mob-boss Shawn Maguire. But whenever he gets mentioned, I'll be thinking of Sean Maguire. Threat-central, yeah.
Not really, if I'm being honest.
Unless you star in the film, I can't see that you'll want to watch it more than once. Rental, it is.
Well I doubt it'll be in Ed Harris' obituary-reel, somehow.
It probably does, actually.
Not really.
There isn't. For shame.
Run All Night stars Qui-Gon Jinn himself, Liam Neeson, of course.
*1 Seriously though, "two years"? John Candy died and they were releasing 'his last film' for the next five years. Two years of Neeson actioners is like a decade in human-years, or something.
*2 He's one of those rapper-actors, I think. He's generally used as background-scowling in movies, but he's pretty good in this. Certainly better at action-movies than the rest of the cast, anyway.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
