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.
More and more these days, I seem to be turning into Ronan The Accuser from Guardians Of The Galaxy. As Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel acrobatically gurned their way through an extended sex scene in the first act of this film, I actually found my brow furrowing in shock and confusion at the screen, as I wanted to stop everything right there and ask "…what are you doing?".
If there's one thing Sex Tape sells really well, it's the awkwardness, shame and overall embarrassment of watching an amateurish, ill-advised film made by people you thought you knew and respected. Cringe-inducing for all the wrong reasons, Jake Kasdan's latest film is torn between being a haphazardly strung together collection of half-written sketches, and a 90 minute Apple commercial*1. But don't worry, the saucy antics and hi-jinks capers will save things, right? Because the last time Kasdan directed Diaz and Segel in an Outrageous Comedy™, that worked out well for everybody, didn't it?
From the opening sequence featuring a "college age" pairing of Diaz and Segel (which I can only imagine was achieved by a combination of make-up, CGI and cheap fairground mirrors), through The Sex Scene™, and all the way to the point where a middle-aged couple take their two young children to break into (and vandalise) the server-warehouse of a pornography website, the whole sordid affair feels like a joke which got out of hand. By the time you insert moralising platitudes every twenty minutes (one burst of which comes from Jack Black in a career low-point as a sentimental pornographer), it's really difficult to imagine who this film is aimed at. Not raucous enough for the teen crowd, not warm-hearted enough for their parents, it's just sort of… grubby, really.
The only (and I mean only) respite comes from Rob Lowe who once again shines as the CEO of a wholesome toy company*2 who has a Disney fixation and spends his spare time listening to Slayer and doing coke. It's not a part that's expanded properly at all, but it's the only piece of bizarre fun you're likely to get out of this mess.
An exercise in poor decision making, shame and regret, Sex Tape does exactly what it says on the tin.
It's every bit as bad; although interestingly, the film can rarely be bothered to be worse.
Chortled through the Rob Lowe segment - that's about it.
Oh, it probably does.
If you pay money to see this film we can't be friends any more.
If you like this film we can't be friends any more.
Nope.
Nope.
Isn't a gobby, smartarsed kid in a Jason Segel film supposed to get a fucking good slap as his comeuppance? I thought that was The Comedy Thing? He's particularly obnoxiously written, after all...
*1 I'm not hating, I'm writing this on a Mac, but the product placement in Sex Tape almost rivals Google's in The Internship. In one "oh, fuck off" moment, Jason Segel's Jay even remarks on how robustly designed the iPad is. At a point where he's talking to himself. I kid you not.
*2 The toy company which, inexplicably, wants to "buy" Annie's (Diaz's) blog, and is then hesitant about the "racy" content, despite the film giving the impression that that's essentially what the blog is. Again, the concept is essentially a crutch for one sketch, so isn't expanded on at all, but why an actual corporation would be interested in a blog as banal and unprofessional as Annie's is inconceivable, especially as they'd have a marketing department to just replicate the tone and feel of it if that's what they wanted.
Look, if anyone knows about having a niche, cluttered, unsaleable blog, it's me, okay?
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 arrived at my local cinema with rather low expectations for this, and these were pushed even lower as I had my own private screening of the film (in my experience, being the only patron in the auditorium is a sign of little public interest in the film, usually because the film in question is a bit crap). But after wincing through the trailers for the horrors that youngsters in the UK will be subjected to this year*1, and through Harrison Ford smiling unconvincingly for money, the movie began…
Now, there's a reason that Escape From Planet Earth has been released in The Movie Graveyard Shift and also not during a half-term, and that's because it's astoundingly average. Your padawans will not be begging you to take them to this, and it's doubtful you'll be upgrading your home-cinema setup once it's released on Blu-Ray. From the B-List voice talent, to the god-awful dance-pop soundtrack, to the character-design that looks like it came pre-loaded with the software*2, there's little here that you haven't seen done before, and better. The plot is a strictly mechanical A+B+C=D, but E, F and G! affair, and while that's fine for the younger audience, they've already seen films like Wreck-It Ralph and Monsters Inc with a much higher story-concept. And to cap the whole thing off, Ricky Gervais stars as the voice of a sarcastic computer operating system, and is out-of-place to the extent that they've laid a fuzz-filter over his voice, suggesting to me that he phoned the performance in literally as well as metaphorically. Elsewhere, the casting director seems to have been so intent on getting Named Actors, that matching their voices to the characters never seemed to be a factor. Rob Corddry and Jonathan Morgan Heit seem to be the only solid choices for their father/son combo; everyone else's parts could quite easily be recast with no adverse affect on the film.
And yet, there are moments in the script which are genuine, sci-fi references which work well without being shoehorned in*3, as well as a lot of fantastic slapstick. By the time you've piled in a load of Area 51 references (some subtle, most not), the film becomes far more watchable than you feel it should be. A U-Certificate doesn't mean a movie has to be dull, but it does mean it's going to be 'safe'. Keep that in mind, and Escape From Planet Earth becomes something worthwhile to keep the youngsters entertained; although it's doubtful that you'll be badgered into buying whatever merchandise they've produced for the film.
For best results, file alongside Turbo and Planes. And considering those two were made by 'players' in the game, Escape From Planet Earth suddenly doesn't seem too shabby. Well, not quite so shabby, anyway.
Yep.
I chuckled often, but that was about it.
Sadly not.
Cinema if you want the 3D, otherwise this is a strictly DVD affair.
Nah.
Only if my nephew/niece insists on putting it on.
Not that I heard, and this sort of thing usually has one. There's a chance it was buried of course, but I didn't pick it up. Fair enough.
Brendan Fraser's better than this though, isn't he? ...Isn't he?
*1The Postman Pat Movie appears to be a calculated insult to the TV episodes that are being made now, never mind the original series. Any parent who takes their child to this really shouldn't be raising a human at all…
*2 Although to be fair, the texturing and rendering themselves are absolutely gorgeous, it's just a shame they weren't used for something more creative.
*3"James… Cameron… Get the aliens!". Oh, come on, I thought that was pretty good for a film where most of the parents will have stopped concentrating half an hour prior to that line.
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.
It's a rare, but pleasing thing when a film can be centered around teenage a protagonist, told exclusively from his point of view, but not be 'a film for kids'. The Way, Way Back is a straight-on coming of age story, documenting a Summer month or so in young Duncan's adolescent life, but it's presented in a way that adult viewers can relate to in hindsight, rather than one that teenagers will be able to use as a guidebook*1. In many ways it's comparable to last year's Wallflower, but while also having a far fresher feel to it. While things never get quite as bleak as in Chbosky's movie, it's also true that the highs never quite match either.
But,The Way, Way Back's strength is that Duncan doesn't have an earth-shatteringly bad relationship with his family*2, it's just the normal, awkward growing up stuff that a lot of kids have to go through. This isn't a one-in-a-million story, it's something that a large number of people will be able to relate to completely, and yet writer/directors Faxon and Rash ensure that we feel for Duncan at every turn without pitying or dismissing him. On that note, Liam James is fantastic in the central role; I'll be interested to see where he goes from here.
The only problem with the film is that it drags its heels a bit, even when everything's got going. Given that the story is told entirely from Duncan's perspective, we still see surprisingly little of how he actually spends a month of working days at the water-park. I wanted more of those scenes as they're the heart of the film, and they're needed to sell the culmination (which is still fantastic, but y'know). Bonus points go to the directors for giving themselves parts which aren't glaringly narcissistic, either.
A beautiful way to end the Summer, The Way, Way Back is a must-watch for anyone who was a shy, geeky kid. And since you're reading this on the internet, I'm going to assume that means you as much as it does me.
It's a rare, but pleasing thing when a movie feels like it's been made just for you. It's not perfect, but then neither's growing up. You should see this film.
It is.
I confess, I did.
For my money, yes, just about.
For me, cinema. Your mileage will vary.
I will a little, yes.
Yes.
There isn't. Strangely.
I think if the movie had avoided the use of mobile phones, it'd be beautifully timeless. What do you reckon?
*1 Not that introverted teenagers won't be able to enjoy it, but the overriding message is 'everyone feels awkward at your age, stop dicking about and go and have some fun'. Which wasn't helpful to me at that age.
*2 Yeah, Steve Carell plays a bit of an arsehole, but there are way worse stepfathers in the world. Duncan doesn't have it that bad.
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.
Pain & Gain Cert: 15 / 129 mins / Dir. Michael Bay
Now there may have been moments in that trailer where you thought "Well, it looks lively and action-packed enough, but what's it actually about?". If it's any consolation, I asked myself the same thing several times during the actual film. Action-thriller? Heist-comedy? Philosophical-parable? Michael Bay aims for each of these and misses the bullseye with every shot. He's succeeded at taking a fairly straightforward story and making it needlessly complicated with sporadic internal monologue voice-overs from five characters. Because of this, it's unclear whose point-of-view we're meant to be seeing the story from, and who we're meant to be sympathising with (although that part's intentional, admittedly). By the time you've factored in a camera that won't stay still, stylised freeze-frames and captions that aren't used often enough to be a bona fide feature and a 'Now… 1990s' soundtrack, it's all a bit of a jumble. A well-intentioned jumble, but still.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike Pain & Gain, but it felt like hard work trying to get any real enjoyment out of it. The action veers between chaotic and flat-out incoherent, and while you never lose track of the narrative, you get the feeling that in gentler hands this could have been a far more effective film. There are some joyous moments of adrenaline, and genuinely dark comedy; but it's forty minutes too long and hampered by more gear-changes than a Fast & Furious movie. For what it's worth, the performances by Wahlberg, Johnson, Mackie and Harris are all great, even if they're being directed all over the place.
I honestly think I enjoy Bay more when he's just showing us 50-ft robots beating the living oil out of each other, and Megan Fox leaning over a car bonnet. At least he's focused at that.
Michael Bay goes to great lengths to remind you that Pain & Gain is a true story; unfortunately he didn't stop to ask anyone how well he was telling it. If the film had the same clarity and drive as the central character, it might not be the steroid-injected hot mess that his partners-in-crime are.
Just because the crooks were stupid, it doesn't mean the movie has to be...
It's a mess as well, so yes.
I suppose I did, yes.
It tries, but it's pulling in different directions. So no.
DVD, tops.
Yes. Yes I will.
Maybe with a commentary track?
There isn't.
Question 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.
