Game Night Cert: 15 / 100 mins / Dir. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein / Trailer
Now obviously, trailers notwithstanding, the audience's initial frame of mind before the movie even begins is in no way, shape or form the fault of Game Night screenwriter Mark Perez, directors John Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, nor indeed the plentiful cast. So, as the Cineworld Unlimited faithful were gathered for the latest advance screening to which they'd been invited, the patron to my immediate left waited until the point in the trailer for Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs where the names of a lot of famous people are listed on-screen for doing the voices. They then observed loudly "Oh, they've got a lot of famous people doing the voices for that!". What I'm saying here is that I tried to give Game Night a fair crack of the whip, but may not have been quite as receptive to A Good Time as the rest of the crowd*1. This, I thought to myself, is going to be a long night. And so it proved.
So. Super-competitive suburban couple Annie (Rachel McAdams) and Max (Jason Bateman) host regular game-nights at their house with a group of friends, playing everything from charades to board-games. But when Max's high rolling investment-trader brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) arrives one evening, he soon devises an idea to raise the stakes, and arranges an interactive role-playing experience in which one of the players will be kidnapped while the rest have to track them down. It's here that Brooks's shady private life catches up with him and the lines between gaming and gangsters become dangerously blurred. But by this point, the players have little choice...
So by now you'll be thinking Oh, so is 'Game Night' like David Fincher's 1997 movie 'The Game', but played more for laughs? Yes, frankly. There's the feeling watching the trailer that it can't quite work out what it wants to be, action-comedy or character-led, dynamic thriller. And in that respect, the trailer is a very fitting representation of the final film. From the off, it becomes clear that everyone's trying slightly too hard, here. But with a cast headed by seasoned performers such as McAdams and Bateman, this feels like it could be more the result of over-direction than flat-out overacting.
That's not to say there isn't fun to be had in the meanwhile, however. The action and comedy setpieces work well in and of themselves (with many laugh-out-loud moments), there's just slightly too much plot, too many sub-plots and too many inevitable twists for the already-weighty run-time, bludgeoning the audience into not thinking too hard about anything. It would also be a much smoother (not to mention shorter) ride without the weapons-grade application of film references*2 and characters constantly stopping to point out the punchlines*3.
Our players never give the less than their full attention, but Game Night feels like it's been cast entirely with supporting-actors, even though McAdams and Bateman should be (and have been) above that level by now. I suppose I should just be grateful that the whole thing isn't being headed by Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler. Within the first ten minutes, Annie and Max's surly, withdrawn, policeman neighbour, Gary (Jesse Plemons), feels like a joke which is going to wear thin very quickly, but actually turns out to be one of the most restrained and consistently funny high-points of the whole affair.
Interestingly uneven, Game Night is an amusing time-passer which certainly beats sitting round the backgammon board for the evening. But in terms of real skill and excitement, Daley and Goldstein are still trying to understand the rulebook…
The Game, Date Night.
I mean it's basically that.
Not unless it's raining and you've got a couple of hours to kill.
Entertaining as this is, rewatch-value will be low; stream/rent.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 2: This film stars Sharon Horgan who was in that Man Up, as was Simon 'Plutt' Pegg, Harriet 'Kalonia' Walter and Phoebe 'L3-37' Waller-Bridge.
*1 And not to get too far ahead of myself, but boy did I know that they enjoyed it. I mean I quite enjoyed it too, but when the adorementioed patron bellowed with laughter every single time someone fell over (that's quite a lot), it's difficult not to resent the film for going so low, so often. But hey, I'm here to judge the movie not the audience, right? Haha. Right. [ BACK ]
*2 At one point, Annie brandishes a handgun in a bar, directly quoting the entire "If any of you fucking pricks move..." line from Pulp Fiction. Max immediately follows this up with "Haha yeah, a bit of Pulp Fiction there for you!". As if a) the people who remember Pulp Fiction hadn't noticed, and b) this will then become funny to anyone who hasn't seen Pulp Fiction and therefore has no reference point for the gag. On top of this there are many other heavy-handed (although some reasonably subtle) references to movies from across the years. Like, 'fan-film' many. You don't have to convince us you're a film geek, Mark Perez - you're writing screenplays for a living now, we'll sort of assume that to be the case... [ BACK ]
*3 Using the same gun, Annie accidentally shoots Max in the arm (this is in the trailer). After a moment of realisation, including a lengthy framing of the bullet wound, Annie then shrilly exclaims "Oh no, I can't believe I shot you!". Oh, is that what happened there? Thanks for pointing it out. [ BACK ]
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.
Okay, much like the film itself, this review of it will feature some unnecessarily bad language; sporadic and largely inoffensive in the grand scheme of things, but acting as a lexical placeholder so that nothing more meaningful has to be written. Like I said, as per…
INT. DREAMWORKS SCRIPTING OFFICE. DAY.
TWO DISHEVELLED MEN SIT OPPOSITE EACH OTHER AT A LARGE DESK.
BOB: So Terry, we're making progress here, finally. Our seasonal comedy has got eight producers, six writers and two directors working on it, as well as a crowded cast-list, over-headlined by supporting actors. You've had four weeks to come up with a title, what have you got?
TERRY: Well, just erm… how does this grab you?
TERRY slides a note over the desk to BOB.
BOB: …how does what grab me? This is a sheet of paper with three words written on it. In fact, this is the sheet of paper I gave to you a month ago with the broadest possible outline for the movie scrawled over it. That's my writing. It just says "Office Christmas Party". That's when you asked what the film was about and I had to distil it as much as I could because I was on the phone to the distributor at the time. That's the setting of the film, the background, the concept. Where's my fucking title, Terry?
TERRY: …it's the simplification of-
BOB: I'll tell you what's simple, Terry. YOU. You've had a fucking month to think of a zippy title to attract the 25-35 crowd, high on Christmas cheer and the 'fuck it, it's December, let's go out watch a movie and get hammered' spirit which comes of working with people you hate for the other eleven and a half months of the year and you've done precisely fuck-not-nothing! As a title - an actual film title - "Office Christmas Party" is perfunctory, reductive and unimaginative. It shows complete contempt for an audience that we think needs everything spelling out for them, in the largest letters and lowest-common-denominator sight-gags. In fact, I'd bet a pound to a fucking penny that presenting this in a title-sequence will consist of one shot with the text laid in a single line across the screen in Helvetica bold, solid white, belying any irony while displaying the total lack of imagination that's gone into the whole, sorry project…
TERRY: I've read the script, Bob. That title works.
BOB: …Yeah, fair point. Scotch?
The chosen title, and perceived logic behind it*1, tells you all you need to know about the film.
And y'know what? The film's not awful. It's just a series of disparate sketches, some far more successfully executed than others, awkwardly tacked together with a screenplay so mechanical it makes Optimus Prime look like something you'd buy at the Deli-counter. If you like people swearing, people falling over, people over-acting drunk/high, too many dick-jokes and the occasional boob, this is your film. Sure, you can get better elsewhere, even with the same overall lack of dignity, but Office Christmas Party is a movie every bit as forced and clichéd as the workplace gatherings it claims to be satirising.
The weirdest thing is that it features a cast you've enjoyed elsewhere struggling through the half-written script as if they're reading it for the first time, playing themselves all the while. Kate McKinnon, TJ Miller and Karan Soni coast on the charm they've accrued this year in much better movies, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston continue to be stuck in the rut of mediocrity to which they've become accustomed, while genre-regulars Jillian Bell and Rob Corddry lend the kind of screen support that will do them no favours in climbing higher up the ladder. At least Olivia Munn is moving in the right comedic direction. Just.
Not without smirks and a couple of guffaws, just nowhere near enough to cover the cracks which make up the entire rest of it. While it pushes (way too) hard for the happy-everyone ending, the film doesn't even try to tug at the audience's heart-strings. This, I suppose, is a blessing.
For best results watch once only and in An Advanced State Of Refreshment™.
The kind of thing that Universal usually wheel out at this time of year. Even though this isn't Universal's. Sure feels like it, though..
No, this is a £3 DVD from Asda while you're picking up pizza, some beer and a bottle of cheap vodka.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 2: This movie stars that Jamie Chung, and she was in Suckerpunch with Oscar 'Dameron' Isaac.
*1 and the choice of typeface as well. I'm not making that shit up. Bizarrely, the title-shot in the film uses Helvetica whereas the poster uses Arial. That's how little effort has gone in, here.
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.
I don't want to start this review on a downer (not least because I usually work up to that), but there was a pretty good crowd for the opening-night performance of Central Intelligence. In fact, there were approximately three-times more people in the room than are currently booked for the opening night of Ghostbusters in less than two weeks time. Just throwing that out there. There'll be plenty of time to judge that movie in due course. And plenty of room too, I shouldn't wonder.
Anyway. When 38yr old forensic-accountant CJ (Kevin Hart) gets an unexpected friend-request from painfully-shy former schoolmate Bob (Dwayne Johnson), his life is quickly turned upside down as he's dragged into a world of encrypted data, government agents and getting shot at! Danger and hilarity ensue as this odd couple have to... yeah, you get the picture. It's that film. It's all in the trailer.
The film doesn't start particularly strongly, with a 1996 high-school sequence featuring CGI'd versions of Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson that are so far down the uncanny valley, they're practically in another film. But with a couple of pratfalls and some heavy-handed sentiment, we're whizzed through a Mission-Impossible-Lite title sequence, and things drop into a more familiar gear.
The plot, as intimated above, involves Hart being a former school-champion turned office-drone, and Johnson being a former fat-kid turned CIA killing machine. A seemingly chance encounter leads to a conspiracy-plot mixed with ferocious slapstick and patchy ad-libbing from Hart. A mis-matched buddy movie with more of its fair share of spy-shenanigans shoehorned in to keep the set-pieces moving along. It is, as also intimated above, a movie you've seen several times before. Perhaps the only saving grace of the film is Dwayne Johnson's performance. He's actually a far better comic straight-man than many give him credit for (his comedy-game is certainly stronger than the action-autopiloting he pays his mortgage with), and he offsets Kevin Hart's incessant shrieking perfectly. And Hart isn't terrible in this, but he's really being paid just to turn up and play Kevin Hart™. And together they just about make the whole thing work (tonight's audience certainly enjoyed it, which is good). Director Rawson Marshall Thurber delivers the action and comedy efficiently enough, but struggles to find the balance between the two.
And while the film doesn't dawdle in its storytelling, it definitely ends about fifteen minutes later than it should, in a self-congratulatory afterglow which is dragged out for far longer than any of the action-sequences, and then leads in to a credits-roll accompanied by some incredibly laboured out-takes. If learning to love yourself is the key to happiness, this could be the most smug movie you'll watch this year.
Although it's probably better than the trailers would suggest, this isn't a great film by any means; but I have seen far far worse (and with this movie's lead performers, too). Central Intelligence is to cinematic comedy what Independence Day Resurgence is to sci-fi: formulaic, largely inoffensive (if thoroughly insincere) mainstream filler.
Well, in another life this movie would have Mark Wahlberg or Will Ferrell in it.
That sort of thing.
Not particularly.
Probably, but it's aiming low.
As passable as this is, no.
Probably not.
Definitely not.
Level 2: That Dwayne Johnson was in 2008's Get Smart, as was Terence 'Valorum' Stamp.
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.
Zootropolis (aka Zootopia)
Cert: PG / 108 mins / Dir. Rich Moore, Jared Bush & Byron Howard / Trailer
First things first: I enjoyed this movie. Although for Disney, it's a bit of a mess. We don't get a separate short-film at the start, as has become tradition with The Mouse's flagship animated offerings, there's no cute after-credits scene, and even though we're relatively close to the US release date, the audiences in the UK get the movie re-titled for no discernible reason. For an Easter-release, this sure feels like an afterthought.
And I don't want to start on a downer (largely because I'm going to end on one), because this is a very likeable movie with very admirable goals. The animation's gorgeous (and the teams have even found a way to showcase all their environments within the first ten minutes), the voice-acting matches the characters (Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman are perfect) and it's peppered with very funny gags which work over various age-levels. But I think the script is way tighter than the story, and individual moments stand out more than the finished movie. The sloth-scene for example is even longer than the trailer-version, and even funnier for it. Although much like a similar sequence in Hail, Caesar!, I could feel the patience of the audience starting to wear. Which just made it funnier for me, to be honest. And within the film's opening scene alone, a school play which features a young cheetah dressed in a tiger costume because he's playing a predator-archetype is already smarter writing than anything in Norm of the North.
But as much fun as I had, the movie just doesn't quite sit together the way you know it should. I suspect it's another example of Disney setting the bar too high for themselves, and the end-result is oddly non-committal. Zootropolis isn't as incisive as Inside Out, as dynamic as Big Hero 6 or as earnestly emotional as Frozen. The problem could well be that the central themes of prejudice, social cohesion and integration are too heavy for a film of this type, even for the mighty hand of Disney. While it never becomes as patronising as the other film about talking animals I watched this weekend, there's a lot of skimming and simplification going on the closer the film skirts to areas of personal belief. The fact that the closing monologue of the film openly admits as much does nothing to alter the 'eager to offer a message, desperate not to offend' tip-toeing we've just seen.
Last things last: then again, the problem could just be that the film has two directors, one co-director, two screen-writers and seven story-writers. This many cooks certain't don't spoil the broth, but their presence explains why it's so uneven...
Despite me comparing it unfavourably, Inside Out.
Only if you desperately want the 3D (which is fine, as it usually is with animation).
Not as much as I'd like, and not as much as the creators would like, either.
It'll be a good first-step for your young padawans, though.
Cast? Difficult to tell as they're also great in live-action.
Director? Difficult to tell as there are so many of them…
Nope.
Not that I heard.
Level 1: ZooWhatever features the voice of Alan Tudyk, who will be appearing in Star Wars: Rogue One later this year.
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.
Okay, from the film's trailer, you'd expect The Gift to be a bit 'Channel 5'. And in a few too many places, it kind of is, although it's still worth a gander for a Saturday night on the sofa. A perfectly serviceable, if unambitious, psychological thriller from Joel Edgerton sees Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) up-sticks from Chicago to Los Angeles in a bid to leave stresses and troubles behind them and start afresh. But a chance counter with Gordo (Edgerton), an old acquaintance of Simon's, starts a chain of events which unearths the past and threatens their future.
Yeah, it is a bit, isn't it? As mentioned above it's by no means a bad flick, just a little tried-and-tested. Jason Bateman's always good value for money, but he's still Jason Bateman™, even when his role gives him a longer leash to roam on than most of his movies. As the discomfort of the film increases, it often feels like Horrible Bosses without the gags. Also holding her head high is Rebecca Hall, whose performance here reminds me of Michelle Forbes in Kalifornia; ie so much better than the rest of the film. The only real stumbling block is Joel Edgerton himself. While he plays the role of Gordo with restraint, his direction sometimes feels a little heavy-handed. But that's also got to come down to his screenplay. While he doesn't put on The Star Shoes™ by any means, I think the film suffers from having him in the Writer/Director/Producer/Actor chairs, and it could have done with a few more creative contributors.
Much like Knock Knock, the audience ends up wanting bad things to happen to Simon and Robyn largely because of the sheer ostentatiousness of the property they live in. Also, Robyn must be the only "designer" in modern cinematic history who doesn't use a Mac (Acer have signed off on the product placement, but Microsoft don't appear to, so we never get to see her actually on-screen working. Although if the bland-quality of her 'lost-dog' poster is anything to go by, that's probably just as well. The film doesn't properly explain it, but I imagine the dog comes home out of embarrassment, having collected all of the posters on the way and put them in the bin).
Importantly, the film's overbearing tension certainly works, as do a handful of orchestrated jumps (Loud Noises™), but the normality which is meant to accentuate these is more stilted and awkward than it should be. A lot of the early dialogue feels ad-libbed; not a problem with the main cast-trio, but the secondary characters suffer with it. The opening act also features backstory exposition which is clunky to the point of cue-carded. But, when it comes down to it, there's a decent story here, and it'll entertain you if nothing else.
Oh, film/promo/newspaper-review type people: that thing at the crescendo of the film? That's not "a twist"; that's "the plot". Please look up the difference.
It's ironic that in order to be the interesting film of its few final scenes, Edgerton's project has to be a well-worn psych-thriller for the first hour and a half. The pay-off's worth it, but only just.
The Gift really wants to be Se7en, but never really gets past being The Hand That Rocks The Cradle...
Not particularly.
It's a rental, tops. A good rental, but a rental nonetheless.
Not particularly.
It probably does, although Edgerton set his bar lower than he perhaps should have.
Not particularly.
There isn't.
The Gift stars, and is directed by, none other than Young Uncle Owen himself, Joel Edgerton.
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.
