The Internship
The thing of it is, though, it's ok. It'll do. It could've been a billion times worse.
Vaughn has forever lost the rapid-fire-funny charm that he displayed in Dodgeball or Old School, where you'd be forgiven for mistaking him as Bill Murray's slightly more talkative and enthusiastic successor but The Internship, like it's leading two characters, is just so full of positivity and some occasionally very funny lines that you can almost see past the mundane, formulaic, Googleness of it all. It also features some actors you probably like and a couple of actually inspired and pretty hilarious scenes.
Wilson is a mystery to me though, so good and full of nuance and depth in Wes Anderson films and then just so cheery but ultimately weak and bland in everything else. In this he is, again, the chipper foil to Vaughn's often-annoying motor mouth and, of course, has a generic and pointless romance with a random woman Vaughn, also the screenwriter, forgot to write a real personality for.
There are times, sadly more frequent than I would've liked, that the Vaughn/Wilson schtick becomes just teeth-grindingly grating. You want to smack them, tell them to breathe and go again.
The Google setting is, on face value, a big old advert for all the services the primary coloured company provides, with a side helping of 'aren't we a swell place to work and aren't we making the world a better place' type crap which, ultimately, comes off a little creepy and simplistic, especially for those of us who grew up on Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka. We know every seemingly joyous place has a dark, weird core that is not to be fully trusted.
Also, as positive as it attempts to present things with it's green, red and yellow bikes, ping pong tables and free pudding for all, laid back hipster/geek chic attitude, somewhere in my soul it scares the piss out of me that this is someone's idea of the way things should work.
All that said, stick it to the back of your mind as much as you can, switch most of your brain off and enjoy the misfits over come adversity, recycled from Revenge of the Nerds, plot line sprinkled with some ok comedy.
Worth a single viewing.
5 out of 10 overly advertised salads.
The Dilemma - 23rd June 2011
Well yes, ok, some of those are fair points, for example it does swing violently all over the place in terms of mood with one minute being a drama, one minute being a farce and next moment being some sort of ridiculous lads comedy but for anyone who saw Vince Vaughn's film The Break Up you'll know that the ones where he has input on the idea, mainly writing or producing, usually seem genuinely interested in the idea of relationships, not in the usual 'boy meets girl' but what happens once boy has met girl, got together and the real challenges start.
Financially, for Vaughn, these have been good waters to tread but, like we have learnt, a films take is no indication of actually how good the film is and when it comes to that he has had varying degrees of success with this concept over his past few films, from the very good (The Break Up) to the 'how did so many right people get something so horribly wrong' (Couples Retreat). He has dealt with break ups, how do couples who are great together privately deal with their dutso families, what happens when another couples mooted break up effects 3 other couples and now the Dilemma which can be boiled down to what happens when one member of two great couples finds out that his friends wife is cheating on him?
Well next to the Break Up this is the second best film of this type that Vaughn has attempted, there is quite a drop off but thankfully Four Christmases and Couples Retreat this is not. Yes some of the jokes and slapstick maybe a bit broad but so was a lot of The Break Up and I honestly always appreciate the attempt to do something more than just the generic rom-com.
Proving, if proof was ever needed, that Ron Howard has absolutely no style of directing what-so-ever, this film could have been directed by generic-blockbuster-comedy-director number 5 and you wouldn't know the difference and while I applaud Vaughn attempting to work with lots of different people each time I am not sure how well this cast gelled together. Individually they were all fine but I am not sure I can handle Winona Ryder anymore, she's just weird.
He may have the success rate of late era Woody Allen, with more misses than hits but I, for one, am willing to allow him to mine the concept of all the possibilities of 'what happens once you're with someone' for as long as he likes and with all the different cast/director combos he can think of because as almost all of The Break Up and parts of The Dilemma show somewhere in his rapid fire delivery is some really good ideas just waiting to be given some form and structure and you never know, it might happen again yet.
6 out of 10 bagels confused as doughnuts and the eater gets a slightly disappointing but not unpleasant experience.
Points from the Wife 6.5 out of 10
Starsky & Hutch - 21st December 2010
I can't honestly say I have ever sat through an episode of the original Starsky and Hutch so I can't compare anything in this with the original, which is probably a blessing because obviously I realise this is a highly comic interpretation of the original show and that means I can just sit back and laugh much in the way we all did with Dragnet back in the 80s, obviously this films closest predecessor.
This film came out just as this particular group of comedians were beginning to establish themselves as a successful group, later dubbed the frat pack, in a very similar vein as the post SNL group of Murray, Aykroyd, Candy and Martin did in the 1980s. There have been hits, misses, attempts at different genres, off the wall masterpieces discovered on DVD like Zoolander and Anchorman and serious turns in naval gazing indies like Stranger than Fiction and Greenberg. Each individual, also, has seemingly gone on to have big, multi-million dollar summer and winter blockbuster movies which may have made them very rich but has not necessarily kept them fresh or funny.
Starsky and Hutch which stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, with turns from Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman and Will Ferrell, although barely mentioned anymore (much like Dragnet) is amongst the early funny ones of this group and stands up surprisingly well a few years down the line. It has its weak spots (the cocaine/ dance off scene goes on way too long and has an unsatisfying pay off) but mostly it is a series of ludicrous sketches strung together under the banner of buddy cop comedy.
Stiller and Wilson are at their best playing absurdly stupid yet confident people in ridiculous situations and the way the film is set up, much like Zoolander, it allows both actors to play to their strengths with Stiller being the real genius of the pair, there is something about his ernest leaping about and attempts to be threatening that are just brilliant.
There is not much to say about the film really as it scarcely matters whether the plot holds up or if the acting is top notch, what matters is if it's funny and while it is certainly not as inventive or bonkers as Zoolander or Anchorman, for example, it does have several legitimately laugh out-loud moments, even if a lot of the gags and set-ups are heavily reminiscent of scenes we've seen before in previous comedies.
It's a great touch to have Fred Williamson as the enraged seventies police captain and Snoop Dog is not above donning a silly wig and doing ridiculous scenes with the rest of them.
A fairly good and jolly way to pass the afternoon if needs be.
6.5 out of 10 prancing dragons
Points from the wife 5 out of 10
Couples Retreat - 20th December 2010
I could've done with a Muppets Christmas Carol or a Scrooged but sadly no, I was stuck with this.
Now I have prefaced this review with the fact that I was sick, let me also preface it with the fact it is the second time I have sat through this film and so this is my sicky, second time viewing experience based opinion, ok? good.
I am going to be a little kinder on this film than I might have been if it was my first viewing, I remember leaving that first experience pretty disgusted with all involved because it is true to say that this film is almost entirely devoid of laughs.
The thought that I had this time was, actually, looking at it again, it is a companion piece to The Break Up in many ways. That was a film that was also billed as an hilarious relationship comedy when really, despite some of its more ridiculous and outlandish scenes, it was actually a fairly successful attempt to look at what couples actually go through in a more serious and inwardly comic way than a laugh out loud comedy riot.
Now what you get with Couples Retreat is in no way as well scripted, well thought out, well directed or as well acted as The Break Up and it's a sad fact that its unfunny, outlandish, cliche'd and often vulgar scenes far out weigh any actual drama or comic comment on relationships but those knowing observations are in there if you want to look out for them. It's also a film that if you have absolutely nothing else to watch and you want to kill a couple of hours watching some comedic actors you maybe once liked take a holiday together then put this on, if you want to watch a film in which some comedic actors you may still like take a holiday and discuss relationships then watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Which brings us to the cast, a crazy ensemble of actors who have all appeared in some of the funniest films and some of the best TV shows of the 21st century, people you may have laughed at, liked and even admired at one time all show up to prove time and time again that comedy doesn't work when you throw money at it, oh and speedos, not really funny either, just old, embarrassing and desperate. Also, if you want me to care if these people get back together or not, make them either funny enough to forgive their hideous antics or likable enough that you don't want to punch them in their soft-cotton pajama wearing, swanning about on a tropical paradise getting a tan type, podgy and miserable looking faces.
It's actually a little unforgivable that all these people could be so bad. Vince Vaughn has been on a downward slope for sometime and is pretty awful as the lead in most of his movies, he is usually better as part of an ensemble, as a second tier character or as a cameo (see Swingers, Anchorman, Old School etc.) and make no mistake, there's a reason he's front and center on the poster, this movie is all about him. Sure the plot is predicated on the idea that Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell's marriage is having problems and yes usual Vaughn cronies, John Favreau and the others get their 5 minutes in the spotlight but most of the film is Vaughn talking, talking and talking. Well, actually, it's more like him whinging, whinging and whinging and it's repetitive, in a monotone, thoroughly unlikeable and surprisingly unfunny.
I said I was going to be kinder on this movie than I would've been the first time I saw it and this is me being kind, so you can only imagine just how rotten I thought it was originally but it's true to say that I did enjoy it a little more the second time, meaning that, in my ill stupor, I didn't find it quite so wretched but really absolutely everyone involved in this knows better and could do better.
3 out of 10 pineapples with a straw in.
Points from the wife 2 out of 10
Old School - 13th September 2010
I think it's a good funny film. It's not spectacular or strikingly original, borrowing heavily, as it does, from films such as Animal House and PCU but it sets out its characters, it sets out its premise and then it plays it through in a perfectly decent way.
Watching it this time around though I realised, that while everyone else does their schtick and hits all the right beats, the genius of this movie is how truly dark the story of Will Ferrell's character is and how there is no attempt, by Ferrell, to make the character likable or sympathetic. Take the performance out of a frat boy comedy and it's a clever, fairly subtle (by Will Ferrell standards) portrayal of a genuine lunatic slowly self destructing without the intelligence, memory or perception to pull himself out of his self dug hole.
I have heard SNL writer's say this about Will Ferrell, who now has sort of been relegated to just playing bumbling naive oafs or stupid braggarts, that they loved writing for him because he could always deliver the weird, perverted or black humour in a way that kept the audience on his side laughing and he was never afraid to say or do something shocking.
I think the first couple of times I watched this, and I haven't seen it a lot, I always just let it wash over me, laughed at the right places and just thought the whole thing was silly, good but silly. This time though, I was also happy to see that beneath all the Vince Vaughn jabbering, the Luke Wilson reluctant hero to smug git routine and the cast of obviously wacky characters around them that Will Ferrell was operating on a totally other level.
I know some of you are reading this and you think I am insane and I know some of you don't see and won't see it, which is, of course, fine but I also think it's a shame because I believe in this film, some of his better SNL stuff and most of the work he does with Adam McKay he does some truly inspired acting. Where as I have never felt, even in his better films, that Jim Carrey is ever operating on any other level than just simply, outwardly wacky, Will Ferrell, on the other hand, plays it straight. Even when he's running down the road naked in Old School, he plays it like a guy who honestly believes he's part of a group of guys doing the same thing and is confused, bemused and maybe even a little hurt to find out it's just him.
This is not saying he is playing it realistic either but it's a straight faced surrealistic character that hints at genuine melancholy beneath the surface, although I am sure 50% of people reading this are scratching their heads thinking "you've lost the plot man, stop over analysing this dumb comedy, are you referring to the same guy who rubs his balls on a drum kit in Step Brothers or was in the Bewitched movie?" and that's fine, I don't completely see what is so great about Star Wars particularly, not that I think it's bad, I just don't get the hullabaloo. It's each to their own at the end of the day.
Anyhew, back to the movie. Like I said at the start, I like it and think it's funny. It was right there at the start of all these, so called by some, Frat-Pack comedies before Luke Wilson fell off the face of the planet only to occasionally return to earth to star in bemusingly bad semi-comedies, before Vince Vaughn made sure he only made one film a year and that film, despite being an atrociously unfunny piece of cinematic effluent, would always make tons of cash, before Apatow went big screen and just after American Pie.
Todd Phillips, who more recently made the so-so monster smash of the summer The Hangover, directs well and keeps it all flowing nicely towards it's inevitable, misfits must trump authority ending and speaking of which, it's great to see Jeremy Piven play the crotchety, piece of filth Dean in an amusing role reversal from his laid-back, anti-authoritarian, slacker in PCU.
The weak link in all of this is the inevitable romantic sub plot with bland as beige Ellen Pompeo who could only possibly fall for our 'hero' after her current boyfriend is exposed to be a slimy philanderer but so-what, at the end of a day it was nice to revisit this movie and have a good chuckle.
7 out of 10 guilty pleasure fudge brownies
Points from The Misses 7 out of 10 guilty pleasure fudge brownies