My Spy Cert: 12A / 99 mins / Dir. Peter Segal / Trailer
Well, with ‘that virus’ stepping up to the pandemic plate and causing increasing dents in the cinematic schedule*1, we have to take what big-screen entertainment we can get and when we can get it. Cue a stroll down to my local for a minimal-contact screening of the new Dave Bautista flick, My Spy. The short version goes like this:
Something something, Russian/French gangsters; something something, CIA undercover stakeout mission; something something, brick-shithouse action hero ends up assisted by a smart, sassy 9yr old girl who happens to be the child of a hot single mother. Cue falling over, mawkish bonding, clumsy dad-dancing, slo-mo explosions and wildly ill-judged cultural crossover references. This is a kids’ comedy with one ‘bitch’, one ‘shit’ and two ‘dick’s, just enough to pull it over the line for a 12A certificate. You have seen this before.
I went in to My Spy with moderate-to-low expectations and boy does this movie deliver. Never as awful as something like Little, there’s nonetheless a sense of gringind, underachieving autopilot*2 to the proceedings. Bautista (the second superhero currently proving his best work is within the MCU) is basically interchangeable with Schwarzenegger, Johnson and even Cena here, such is the screenplay's lack of identity. With backup from genre stalwarts Ken Jeong and Kristen Schaal, it’s tempting to think that everyone involved is better than this. Yet their paid-for presence proves they clearly aren’t.
Plot markers and callbacks to other (better) movies are shamelessly ticked off as we speed toward a literal cliff-edge finale. By this time, the film actually has picked up quite a lot, but has definitely not earned that uplift. The good news is that My Spy is exactly what you expect it to be. The knock-on is that you should probably know better by now…
Level 2: Parisa Fitz-Henley's in this, and she was in that Fantasy Island (earlier this week, no less) alongside Ian 'Ganwick Trag' Roberts and Goran D. 'Lampay Fay' Kleut.
*1 As well as the widely publicised Bond delay, the last few days have seen cancellations of next week's A Quiet Place double-bill and a Cineworld Unlimited screening of Dream Horse. The second of those I'm basically fine with, but it's the short notice due to twitchy distribution companies that really stings... [ 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.
Well it's not every day I'm pleasantly surprised by a film that's essentially a mashup of Weird Science and a 1986 Viz character. Not least when it deftly borrows the freeze-frame fourth-wall-breaking of Deadpool, the evil genius with a shrink/enlarge weapon from Ant-Man and the mass-mutation beam of the X-Men movies, and manages to clock in with a U certificate, to boot.
Dreamworks' Captain Underpants is the big-screen debut of Dav Pilkey's books by the same name (and alas clocking in too late for this year's Adaptation series) and follows school-friends Harold and George as they unwittingly bring to life their own cartoon creation, the eponymous captain.
First things first, this is a silly film. Delightfully, masterfully silly, in fact. Don't let the BBFC rating make you think it's been unduly sanitised on its journey to the cinema, although there's comparatively little in the way of double-entendres*1 'for the parents'. If you're going to enjoy this with your youngsters, it'll be because you're on the same level*2. Which is, in all honesty, the best way anyhow. While the film isn't entirely devoid of 'message', comedy is the foundation here. And if the grown-ups can have movies like that, why shouldn't the kids? The bottom line is, I laughed more in the first five minutes of this film than I did in the entirety of Cars 3.
Although it dips in and out of various animation styles for small set-pieces, the majority of presentation is in smooth CGI models (thankfully in the artwork style of the source-text). Personally I'd have preferred something which felt like it held a little more weight, ie stop-motion style, even if that was simulated. But at the end of the day, this is Dreamworks, not Laika. And speaking of such matters, the two lead characters would probably be better if they'd been voiced by kids instead of 'enthusiastic sounding men', but it's not like this pulled me out of the fun at all.
At 89 minutes this is a lean show, but the runtime fits the story that's being told and the film ends just before it runs out of narrative steam (there's a mid-credits scene if you're so-inclined). Sure, in the long-term maybe it's a little forgettable, but as some animated features are forgettable while you're watching them, it's ridiculously entertaining throughout. And in the Summer-holidays, that counts for a lot.
The cleanest toilet-humour you'll see this year, and all the better for it. If you don't laugh during this film, you were probably never a child.
Minions, Weird Science, things containing fart-jokes.
If you have padawans you'll probably be dragged along to it anyway.
That's no bad thing.
Yep.
Well, I think Kevin Hart has found his natural cinematic home…
Nope.
No.
Which, in a film like this, is frankly ridiculous.
Level 1: This film features the work of Thomas 'additional voices in The Old Republic' Middleditch.
*1 That said, the 'uranus' joke is mined on more than one occasion and like a Stewart Lee routine, just gets funnier each time. [ BACK ]
*2 Because y'know, not every building in a movie that's numbered '213' is a reference to Jeffrey Dahmer/Slayer. I accept that now. [ 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.
Pity the poor editor*1 tasked with assembling a usable scene from hours and hours of Melissa McCarthy's frenzied ad-libbing. When you see an extended exchange full of awkward pauses, interspersed with her repeating the cast's lines back to them three times, but with added fuck-words, that was the best take. And it's a (by now) tried and tested formula which shows no signs of winding down at Universal…
Starring everyone's favourite Bridesmaids scene-stealer, The Boss is the sassily-comic tale of a ruthlessly brash yet successful business-woman who finds herself cast out by her colleagues and contemporaries, turning to a former employee for friendship and support as she utilises the best of her old ways, while learning to be a new and better person at the same time! Yes, it's basically Melissa McCarthy starring in a slightly sub-par Jim Carrey film. Actually, no... starring in every slightly sub-par Jim Carrey film.
Remarkably inoffensive given the 15 certificate, there's yelling, swearing, and a series of unfeasible (yet wholly unsurprising) setpieces featuring a pitched melee between two gangs of girl-scouts. After that, the film pretty much writes itself. Which is just as well, as Mel's going to turn in the same performance as she does for all her other vehicle-movies, anyway.
The Boss wasn't quite as awful as I'd feared, but the film is so monumentally lazy that I'm amazed it managed to summon the energy get all the way to my local cinema*2.
McCarthy is better than this, I'm sure of it.
[ Number of comedy pratfalls by a larger-than-average person: five. Paul Blart got nuthin' to worry about... ]
Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell comedies.
(That's not meant to sound as facetious as it looks, I assure you)
No.
Asda. £3. Tops.
Not particularly.
Oi, Dinklage. First Pixels, now this? The currency of your Lannister goodwill is fucking spent, mate. Tread carefully....
I will.
There isn't.
Level 2: As noted, this movie stars Peter Dinklage who's apparently in a thing called Game of Thrones along with Gwendoline 'Phasma' Christie and Max 'Tekka' Von Sydow (among several other performers from The Force Awakens).
*1 Paul Alpert, in this case. Poor, poor bastard...
*2 Although credit where it's due, that's more effort than the audience put in. I watched this Universal Studios A-lister comedy (admittedly now in its second full week of release) in a cinema with two other people. One of whom was incredibly drunk. Neither of whom laughed more than a handful of times.
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.
Very little to say about this one, really. If you've seen the first Cloudy, you'll know pretty much what what you're getting, and the film takes that expectation and delivers nicely. It's very funny, it's very sweet, and there's enough going on to keep the kids and the adults engaged throughout.
Outstanding animation and excellently cast (and performed) voicework already put it above the other animated movie that's out at the moment, but it never quite reaches the level of greatness you feel it's aiming at. The themes are all painted very broadly and there's little in the way of subtext, but the fast-paced script and number of visual gags will make re-watching a lot of fun for quite some time.
It may rely quite heavily on puns, but Cloudy…2 has a sense of joy that's quite infectious. The film doesn't take itself too seriously, and as a result lacks the full-on emotional manipulation we're used to in this genre (a welcome change, if I'm being honest). If there was ever an animated movie which seemed happy to be classified as 'a cartoon', this is it. Enjoy.
Yeah.
I did.
I think it does.
That will depend on how eager you are to see it, ultimately.
No.
I will.
There IS.
Bill Hader is excellent as Flint Lockwood in the 'Cloudy' movies, but do you think he's got the heft to be the lead in live-action comedies?
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.
Well, with ‘that virus’ stepping up to the pandemic plate and causing increasing dents in the cinematic schedule*1, we have to take what big-screen entertainment we can get and when we can get it. Cue a stroll down to my local for a minimal-contact screening of the new Dave Bautista flick, My Spy. The short version goes like this:
