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.
Why has this movie taken so long to come out in the UK? It debuted in October in the US, and it's now out on DVD while the UK still hasn't had the full opening yet. It's that sort of lacklustre marketing and staggered release which makes it appear that the studio is noncommittal about what they've created, which is a real shame because Goosebumps is quite marvellous in its own way. Damn, that sounds noncommittal. Right, let me try again...
This big-screen adaptation of what can only be described as a literary phenomenon sometimes feels a little overshadowed by the presence of Jack Black and saunters in on the heels of some rather unimpressive trailers. Black over-eggs the pudding of course, but that's why you hire Jack Black. In a comedy/adventure environment, he's value for money if nothing else.
The film takes a good twenty minutes of its run-time to get warmed up (or rather, to become more than the sum of its parts), and the early backstory/exposition can feel a little heavy-handed, even making allowances for the target demographic. But after the initial scene-setting, the script is far more comfortable in itself as Goosebumps becomes a family-friendly horror adventure, with slapstick and dry humour in equal measure.
The books which inspired the film may be a product of the 1990s, but the movie itself is an almost Spielbergian homage to adolescent adventure movies of the 80s, like a feel-good version of The Lost Boys. For obvious reasons, it's packed to the rafters with Goosebumps references and in-jokes, but there are also Easter-eggs and nods to all manner of horror flicks from the last fifty-or-so years, too (including an above-average number of jibes in Stephen King's direction).
On a graphical front (and the film is proudly flagged as a Sony Animation production, so nit-picking is fair game), it's got to be said that a few of the creatures look a little 'plasticky' and almost unfinished, although those moments are outnumbered by the ones which pass the bar set by most studio movies in the 21st century. While it's not the best or worst CGI you've seen recently, Sony's trumpeting certainly suggests it's their A-game. The 3D, on the other hand, skips between average and ineffectual. It's not that it's badly rendered, it just isn't used to the potential that a film like this carries.
But Goosebumps is very much a movie for the youngsters, and is very much proud of that without being patronising to its audience. It's perhaps a little throwaway, but any film which demonstrates the power of books and imagination to a new audience is a great thing, indeed (even if it does so in quite a self-serving and brand-aware sort of way). I'd have gotten even more out of the film if it had just slowed down and done fewer things more thoroughly, but then it wasn't really made for me.
Enormous fun for the right audience, if a PG-rated Jack Black comedy can win over a cynic like me, you might just enjoy it too…
That's debatable, to be fair, although it's certainly going to look its best on a big screen.
I think it does.
Hmmm…
Probably not.
I didn't hear one, although the film's about 70% shrieking, so it wouldn't surprise me if a Wilhelm slipped through in one of the crowd scenes.
Level 2: Goosebumps stars Odeya Rush, who appeared in 2012's The Odd Life Of Timothy Green alongside Joel 'Uncle Owen' 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.
Maybe it's because I'd just sat through the distinctly sparkle-free Christmas With The Coopers, or maybe it's because what followed was the threat-free Krampus, but my Christmas movie of 2015 is The Night Before, by a Lapland-mile.
Maybe it's because the film isn't really about Christmas, but about friendship? Good old fashioned sweary, drunken, adventure-having, mistake-making, off-your-box-a-range-of-substances friendship. As someone who loves the idea of the festivities but seems to struggle with the actuality, I love that The Night Before is more of a yuletide safety-valve for the writers than a heartwarming parable, and I'll completely understand a lot of people disliking the film for continually stepping over the line of what's expected from a tinsel-flick (not that it's ever hateful, but the script's frequent disregard for the line of perceived good-taste is breathtaking).
Ostensibly a very loose retooling of A Christmas Carol, there are also beats from (and references to) Home Alone, It's A Wonderful Life and Santa-knows how many other seasonal movies nested away in there. Seth Rogen is on fantastic form, which is no mean feat alongside Anthony Mackie and Joseph Gordon-Levitt both bringing their comedic A-games. There's still the feeling that the film is a loosely linked series of separately-written sketches, but the recurring beats hold it together nicely enough. Not least of these is Michael 'Zod' Shannon as the mysteriously shambolic Mr. Green. It wasn't until about half way through the movie that I realised Shannon appears to be playing his character as played by Samuel L Jackson. It's never overdone, but quite unnerving once it kicks in.
But as overtly raucous as the film is, there's a good heart beating away underneath, blurring the lines of choosing between spending your time with friends vs family in the holiday season. Because if you're doing it right, your family are your friends, and your friends are family. And neither are just for Christmas ;)
As festive messages of goodwill go, The Night Before is immature, irresponsible and utterly puerile. And all the more genuine, for it...
It's worth paying to see, for sure, but…
…it'd be equally suited to a cold, December night in with buddies and beverages.
And as it's a Christmas movie, you may as well buy it for repeated future use, of course.
All of the baubles shine brightly, here.
It does.
I think it could have achieved more, but that's not the point.
Not one jot.
There isn't.
Well, The Night Before stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also appeared in 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, as did a certain Ray 'Darth Maul' Park…
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.
22 Jump Street Cert: 15 / 112 mins / Dir. Phil Lord, Chris Miller
I'd approached the sequel to 2012's Tatum/Hill cop-actioner with no small amount of caution. Not because I didn't thoroughly enjoy its predecessor, but more because it was something of a surprise hit, and then there's that bit in the trailer where Nick Offerman's police captain tells them "do the same thing; everyone's happy". While it's commendable that the makers of the film are at least aware of the thin ice they're cinematically treading on, is it wise to be so blasé about it?
In this case, yes. Yes, it is. 22 Jump Street is far too self-aware for its own good, but somehow no less funny for it. The knowing winks to unnecessary sequels, ageing actors and formulaic plot devices are pushed past clichéd, through repetitive and on to the point where they're funny again (and as I'm entirely aware that comedy is subjective, you'll just have to take my word for that). It's duly noted that while the screenplay points out how crass or laboured the jokes are, it doesn't refrain from cracking them all the same.
Jonah Hill is on good form, and Channing Tatum proves once again that comedic acting is his forté (going to far as to obliquely reference White House Down on-screen). Also faring far better than he should is Ice Cube (especially when you consider that he played essentially the same role in Ride Along, to far lesser effect). All in all, much like its predecessor, this is a great comedy film, and it doesn't try to be anything more (oh, and bonus points for the closing credits full of faux-sequel clips).
While the film feels far too long (the Spring Break segment almost seems to be from another installment) it never gets boring, and it's largely thanks to the chemistry of Hill and Tatum. There's no great 'reveal' this time round, but I don't think a script as self-referential as this could handle it anyway.
A comedy that concentrates on being consistently laugh-out-loud funny above all else, lightning has struck twice on Jump Street and given life to the rarest of beasts: a sequel which stands shoulder-to-shoulder with its progenitor.
Which is also a nice way of saying that if you didn't enjoy 21 Jump Street, there'll be little for you here.
It is.
I did.
More than.
It'll be just as funny on DVD, it just depends how quickly you want to see it.
A bit.
I will.
Pretty sure there's one when they drive through the 'robot factory'?
As funny as 21 and 22 Jump Street have been, they've been lacking prominent female characters (Amber Stevens and Jillian Bell are woefully underwritten in this). Who would you cast in 23 Jump Street to even the see-saw without tipping it?
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.
