Posts Tagged ‘Kevin Hart’
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
Just like a marriage, The Five-Year Engagement is a mixed bag. I really enjoyed it and laughed through most of the film but there was a lot of times when I rolled my eyes and waited for the film to pick up again. The “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” combo of writer/director Nicholas Stoller, writer/star Jason Segel, and producer Judd Apatow is back with a romantic comedy that didn’t need over the top gags, cliches, or raunchy scenes to help it through. They replaced that with a gamut of unique and quirky characters that gave tremendous support to the two main stars in this relationship roller coaster. It’s a grown up comedy from a group that keeps making more sophisticated comedy rather than relying on the same ol’ bag of tricks that other troupes suffer from.
The film instantly won my heart as it’s set in San Francisco and depicts many of the oddities that I love about the city. A make up your own superhero party on New Year’s Eve? Come on, where else is that normal? The movie quickly moves to the proposal between our main characters Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt), and introduces us to Tom’s best friend Alex (Chris Pratt) who is toe-tally remarkable in the movie. Everything is on the up and up for the couple but you already know the movie title is Five-Year Engagement so you wait for the wrench to be thrown in. There’s an engagement party with some of the most awkward family and friend speeches you will ever hear and you will be cracking up throughout them all. Alison Brie from Community plays a much different role as Violet’s kid sister Suzie and for some reason has a ridiculous accent to match Emily Blunt – it’s fantastic.
Emily Blunt and Jason Segel with Chris Pratt and Alison Brie
Michigan. They move to Michigan. Tom was an up-and-coming chef in San Francisco and moved to Michigan to be with his fiance who got into a grad program there. This is where the movie turns down the tempo a bit just as life is slower in the middle of the country rather than the coasts. Segel turns into a mountain man while Blunt turns into an over-analytical donut. Still, there is a lot of comedy in their tattered relationship as they deal with their own and other problems…and continually push back the wedding. I’m sure this is where a lot of the audience will get frustrated and wonder why they just don’t elope in Las Vegas.
Emily Blunt, Rhys Ifans, Mindy Kaling, Randall Park, and Kevin Hart
Like relationships, this movie has its ups and downs and takes its toll on you. But it’s still funny while it does that. While in Michigan, we meet Violet’s colleagues at the University of Michicgan: Rhys Ifans, Mindy Kaling, Randall Park, and Kevin Hart who offer up a whole different style of comedy that acts as a good divide. Tom has to deal with sweater-making stay-at-home dad Chris Parnell and Brian Posehn. At some points in the movie, I thought that more time and love could have gone into the project because of some non-focused scenes and parts that could have been left on the cutting room floor. I got really involved in the characters and loved the structure of the film but a few things were just off…
The Happy? Couple
From the awkward family conversations and intimate bed scenes, The Five-Year Engagement is chock full of relatable scenarios for couples. It’s a great date movie for both young couples and seasoned veterans alike. It’ll make you want to move to San Francisco which is a great thing and make anyone engaged just want to get the wedding over with. Even though it doesn’t deserve the R-rating, it’s probably a good thing that it got it because younger people probably won’t get the same satisfaction from watching it. It’s definitely a grown-up comedy that doesn’t resort to the juvenile techniques we’ve been seeing in recent adult comedies. I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to see it again. Poosh.
Tags: Alison Brie, Brian Posehn, Chris Parnell, Chris Pratt, Emily Blunt, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason Segel, Judd Apatow, Kevin Hart, Mindy Kaling, Nicholas Stoller, Randall Park, Rhys Ifans, The Five-Year Engagement
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Thursday, April 19th, 2012
Think Like A Man wasn’t funny. I thought it was supposed to be a comedy but for the majority of the movie, my theater was silent and instead I found myself watching a well-produced infomercial for Steve Harvey’s self-help book, “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.” With such a stellar cast, you would think there was more to it but the biggest laughs did not come from the main characters. There were hints of a good movie in there for both men and women but it ended up being a dud for both sides of the story. I thought Steve Harvey was a comedian. “Steve Harvey is a traitor.”
When you begin your movie making fun of Tyler Perry, you should at least make sure your movie is better than his. This was a very tongue-in-cheek attempt to separate your urban film from the rest of the stereotypical pack but the problem is Perry manipulates a formula that works while Think Like A Man’s formula needs to go back to the drawing board. “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment” is an advice book for women detailing how men think…basically giving away the rules to the “game.” Each woman in the movie reads the book and starts applying its advice to their unknowing counterparts. It seems to work until the men figure out what’s going on and start lying by using the book’s advice against the women. That seems to work until the women figure – I think you get it.
THIS is the script!? Really!!?
You have the dreamer (Michael Ealy) with the driven successful man-woman (Taraji P. Henson). The grown-up kid who can’t commit (Jerry Ferrara) with the pushover girlfriend who wants a ring on it (Gabrielle Union). The player player (Romany Malco) with the girl who gives it up too easily (Meagan Good). The momma’s boy (Terrence Jenkins) with the single mother (Regina Hall). And Kevin Hart. And Steve Harvey (yes, he’s in the movie as himself pushing his book). All members of this cast deserve something better. They did a great job with the material they had but the script was stale. The most consistent laughs came from Duke (Caleel Harris), Candace’s (Regina Hall) little boy. Let’s continue the name calling…there are also cameos from: Chris Brown, La La Anthony, Wendy Williams, Sherri Shepherd, Bruce Bruce, J.B. Smoove, Keri Hilson, Kelly Rowland, and some basketball players including Ron Artest and Lisa Leslie. Whew, that was a mouthful.
The required entire ensemble cast coming together at the end shot
Kevin Hart got his screen time and used it fairly well. He goes off on his ridiculous tangents and most of the time they’re pretty funny. They just don’t mesh well with the rest of the movie. It’s like movie movie movie, Kevin Hart, movie movie movie, Kevin Hart, movie movie, oh, Kevin Hart is still here. The basis of this movie is to get people to see the advice that the book gives and make them want to go buy and read it. The movie itself is just no good and a waste of time. It was doomed from the beginning with trying to tackle too many couples and not have a good overbearing story. If you have relationship problems, this movie is probably just going to make it worse because if your date dragged you to this garbage, you’re going to want to dump them for making you watch it.
Tags: Act Like a Lady, Bruce Bruce, Caleel Harris, Chris Brown, Gabrielle Union, J.B. Smoove, Jerry Ferrara, Kelly Rowland, Keri Hilson, Kevin Hart, La La Anthony, Lisa Leslie, Meagan Good, Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, Romany Malco, Ron Artest, Sherri Shepherd, Steve Harvey, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Jenkins, Think Like A Man, Wendy Williams
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Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
I’m watching you. Gaylord Focker is back for the third installment of this endless trilogy with an extensive ensemble wasting their talented skills on toilet humor. First there was Meet The Parents which introduced us to the strict side of this crazy family, then there was Meet The Fockers which showed us the polar opposite sexual side of the family, now the family has grown with two Little Fockers…but we don’t really get to meet them, it’s still the same old storyline between Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) and Greg Focker (Ben Stiller). I think Dustin Hoffman who plays Bernie Focker saw how bad the script was and pretty much took himself out the movie. Little Fockers isn’t a disaster…but it’s not funny…or good.
You should know what to expect from this series. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the movie but thought it would have some funny parts. The first two movies still made you laugh with escalating scenarios and over the top scenes but this one failed to lack any of that charisma. Instead, they just threw together the cast again and hoped for the best. It’s the twins 5th birthday and both sets of grandparents are coming to celebrate. Pam Focker’s (Teri Polo) sister just split from Dr. Bob because he was cheating on her so Jack Byrnes is all over Greg again to make sure he doesn’t mess up his family even more. The Focker grandparents (Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman) are hardly in the movie.
What Happened?
It’s the typical problem/resolution plot with Jack following Greg and thinking he’s having an affair with the beautiful Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba) who I couldn’t stand in this movie. Her character is just too annoying. She does actually strip to her underwear which I wasn’t expecting at all so that was fun. Did anything else happen in this movie? To get the kids involved, they had an interview at the Early Human School, the Harvard of pre-schools. The kids weren’t funny. There were a slew of small parts and cameos by even more amazing people like Harvey Keitel, Kevin Hart, Deepak Chopra, Rob Huebel and Nick Kroll but they added absolutely nothing to the movie. Their roles could have been played by anybody.
Who has the most white hairs in this picture?
Owen Wilson reprised his role as Kevin Rawley, the eccentric millionaire who is on great terms with all of his ex lovers including Focker’s wife Pam. As usual, his character is just so strange and ridiculous it fits with the rest of this odd group. He’s solely in the movie to make things awkward for Greg just like everything else but doesn’t really create problems that turn into anything. It’s more like…oh, that happened, let’s move on which is generally the feeling of the whole movie. Something happens, then something else happens, and now nobody cares anymore, next scene! Sadly, none of those somethings happening made me laugh.
Yeah, I dunno
In the first five minutes of Little Fockers, you’ll hear penis, anus and of course Focker. If that makes you laugh, you might actually like this movie. I would say if you liked the first two movies, you might like this one as well but I think this one was significantly worse. They were never able to rustle up a scene that would keep the audience laughing. At most, there are little chuckles here and there. I wasn’t expecting much from this one but was still disappointed at how lame it was. Comedies are supposed to be funny, right? And yes, they hinted at a fourth one…maybe it should be called “Focking Die Already!”
Tags: Barbra Streisand, Ben Stiller, Deepak Chopra, Dustin Hoffman, Harvey Keitel, Jessica Alba, Kevin Hart, Little Fockers, Nick Kroll, Owen Wilson, Rob Huebel, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo
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Thursday, April 15th, 2010
With such an amazing cast including some of today’s best comedians, how could this comedy turn out so shitty? (pun intended) Death at a Funeral goes for the quirky everything that can go wrong does go wrong feel but ends up with a plain old movie that’s as stiff as the body in the casket they’re having the funeral for. Chris Rock, playing Aaron, has been living with and supporting his father, mother (Loretta Devine), and wife (Regina Hall) who is trying to get pregnant. Martin Lawrence is Aaron ‘s younger and much more successful brother Ryan who everyone adores…except, of course, Aaron. Joined by the rest of his family, Aaron tries to hold a service for his late father but one thing leads to another and you’re supposed to laugh.
The movie starts off slow with everyone heading to the funeral. You’re introduced to each character and their accompanying story lines. You have the beautiful Zoe Saldana as Elaine with her boyfriend (James Marsden) that’s extremely nervous about her family getting together because Elaine’s father doesn’t approve of him. They pick up Elaine’s brother (Columbus Short) who’s a pharmaceutical student with some interesting pills he keeps misplacing. Next you have Tracy Morgan playing Norman who’s a friend of the family but thinks he’s as much part of the family as everybody else. He’s with Derek (Luke Wilson) who’s in love with Elaine and Elaine’s father approves of him so much that he keeps trying to get them together. They are charged to pick up Uncle Russell (Danny Glover) who’s a cranky old disabled man. And finally, you have a mysterious character in a leather jacket nobody in the family really knows. Still with me?
The movie started to pick up when everyone arrived at Aaron’s house for the funeral but sadly, the movie had to resort to physical humor, potty jokes, and over the top antics. Even worse is that those are the best scenes in the movie…and biggest laughs. The funniest scenes come from James Marsden while he’s high off of his mind from drugs he didn’t know he was taking. Since he was so nervous about dealing with Elaine’s dad, Elaine gave him one of her brother’s pills – she thought it was Valium. Of course the high scenes are backed by stereotypical one drop reggae music.
James Marsden and Danny Glover actually made the film manageable for me. James Marsden’s high scenes were really funny and never got old (he’s high almost the entire movie). Danny Glover gave the other best performance as the cranky old man…most people don’t see him as a comedic actor, but he’s great in comedies. He blesses us with this little tidbit, “Let me tell you something about women, they’re smarter than you think they are…but not nearly as smart as they think they are.” The biggest laugh, maybe in disgust, comes from Danny Glover and Tracy Morgan’s scene with Norman assisting the handicapped Uncle Russell in the bathroom…I’ll let you figure out the rest. Tracy Morgan has small patches of brilliance but they’re bogged down by other scenes of boring run on dialogue and a running gag that just gets annoying.
Other than that, all of the parts could’ve been played by anybody…there was nothing special about them at all. It actually felt like Chris Rock was trying not to be funny and just saying his lines as dry as possible. There were a few clever lines from him and other characters thrown in here and there but they felt more like wasted material that should’ve been saved for a good movie or performance. When Aaron tells his wife what a mess the funeral has turned in to she replies, “I don’t know…I think it’s kind of exciting…for a funeral.” Perhaps, but not nearly exciting enough for people to watch this movie in the theaters.
Oh yes, and this was a remake of an English film of the SAME TITLE that came out three years ago. THREE YEARS! They even used Peter Dinklage to play the same character in both! You can see a great post comparing scenes from both movies side by side at Cinemablend [Death At A Funeral Vs. Death At A Funeral: A Scene By Scene Remake Analysis].
Anyway, look for both Columbus Short and the gorgeous Zoe Saldana together next week in The Losers (with many advance screenings) which I hope will be a lot better than this movie. You can check out our post for The Losers Q&A at Wondercon.
Tags: Bob Minor, Chris Rock, Columbus Short, Danny Glover, Death at a Funeral, James Marsden, Keith David, Kevin Hart, Loretta Devine, Luke Wilson, Martin Lawrence, Peter Dinklage, Regina Hall, Regine Nehy, Ron Glass, Tracy Morgan, Zoe Saldana
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