Tag Archives: Paul Rudd

On the Road #1 – The Fundamentals of Caring (2016)

21 Sunday Oct 2018

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D: Rob Burnett / 97m

Cast: Paul Rudd, Craig Roberts, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Ehle, Megan Ferguson, Julia Denton, Frederick Weller, Bobby Cannavale

Ben Benjamin (Rudd) is a retired writer who takes a course to become a caregiver in order to support himself. He has a wife, Janet (Denton), but they’re in the process of getting divorced. Ben’s first job is to look after Trevor (Roberts), an eighteen year old suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, while his mother, Elsa (Ehle), is at work. As the two get to know each other, Ben becomes aware that Trevor has a fascination for roadside attractions, particularly the World’s Deepest Pit. Ben suggests they take a road trip to the Pit and take in some other attractions along the way. Trevor wants to but is scared of leaving his home, while Elsa has her own worries about his safety. In the end, he and Trevor set off on a trip that will take them a week. On the way, they give a lift to Dot (Gomez), who’s hitchhiking to Denver to restart her life after the death of her mother, and later to Peaches (Ferguson), a young pregnant woman heading home to Nebraska. But it’s Trevor’s determination to visit his absent father in Salt Lake City that changes the nature of the trip indelibly…

The road trip movie is a staple of American movie making, the country’s wide open highways and variety of physical locations often providing a vivid backdrop for what is usually a journey of self-discovery. Adapted from the novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison, this is yet another movie that takes that basic set up and offers a mix of heartfelt drama and sprightly humour as it plays out its simple storyline. This is a straightforward, no frills, no surprises feature that ticks all the boxes dramatically and comedically for this kind of movie, but which does so in such an inoffensive, pedestrian, but likeable manner that it’s hard not to approve of it, even though a lot of the time you’ll be wondering, Is this it? At first, Ben is out of his depth, but soon becomes adept at caring for Trevor, while Trevor’s initial snarky behaviour (and practical jokes) soon transforms into a respect for Ben that he hasn’t shown toward any of his previous carers. So far, so predictable then, but it’s the lightness of Burnett’s direction, and the relaxed performances of Rudd and Roberts that help offset any criticism. For once, a movie’s benign approach to the material makes it all the more enjoyable.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t address some serious issues along the way, because it does. Ben has a tragic past that is affecting his divorce; Trevor wants to resolve the emotional issues he has surrounding his father (who left when he was diagnosed at the age of three); Dot has her own father issues; and there are minor shout outs to the quality of disabled access at roadside attractions, depression, self-imposed guilt, and betrayal. But again, this isn’t a heavy drama, rather it’s a movie that makes its points with a laidback approach that suits the material and which is content to explore these matters with a restraint that underscores the characters’ emotional states throughout, and with a subtlety that’s refreshing. That old phrase, Less Is More, applies here, even when the material does thin out alarmingly in places, but it always slips back on track, thanks to the solid work of its cast, Burnett’s sense of rhythm and pace, and evocative camerawork by DoP Giles Nuttgens. The whole thing ends on a perfect coda, as well, one that will viewers away feeling good about the movie and having seen it in the first place. And what more could you ask for…?

Rating: 7/10 – anyone expecting a movie with the kind of depth that the World’s Deepest Pit might be a metaphor for, will find The Fundamentals of Caring to be anything but; however, it’s a lovely movie full of bright moments and with good intentions, and though you can accuse it of being slight and innocuous, on this occasion, these are actually strengths that make the movie more than it seems at first glance.

The Catcher Was a Spy (2018)

21 Saturday Jul 2018

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D: Ben Lewin / 95m

Cast: Paul Rudd, Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Jeff Daniels, Tom Wilkinson, Guy Pearce, Paul Giamatti, Giancarlo Giannini, Hiroyuki Sanada, Connie Nielsen, Shea Whigham

In the years before the US enters World War II, Morris “Moe” Berg (Rudd) is a catcher for the Boston Red Sox. Regarded as the “strangest man ever to play baseball”, Berg is an average player, but of above average intelligence, being able to speak seven languages fluently, regularly contribute to the radio quiz programme Information, Please, and read and digest up to ten newspapers daily. A man of singular interests but also leading a very private life, Berg pursues a relationship with a woman, Estella (Miller), that he won’t acknowledge publicly, while on a trip to Japan, he takes it on himself to shoot footage of the Tokyo harbour. After Pearl Harbor, Berg uses the same footage to wangle himself a desk job with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Soon though, his expertise in languages lands him a job in the field: to track down the noted physicist Werner Heisenberg (Strong) and determine if his work for the Nazis will give them a nuclear weapon – and if it will, then Berg is to kill him…

Another tale of unsung heroics set during World War II, The Catcher Was a Spy (a title that’s both derivative and clever) is a movie that takes a real life person and spins a mostly true story out of events they took part in, but does so in a way that alerts the viewer very early on that, despite the mission, Berg won’t be put in any danger, so any tension will evaporate before it’s even got up a head of steam. So instead of a movie that should be increasingly tense and dramatic, we have a movie that plays matter-of-factly with the material, and is presented in a pedestrian, if sure-footed manner. Working from an adaptation of the book of the same name by Nicholas Dawidoff, director Ben Lewin and writer Robert Rodat have fashioned a moderately engaging espionage tale that moves elegantly yet far from robustly from scene to scene without providing much in the way of emotional impact. Partly this is due to Berg’s own nature, his muted feelings and intellectual prowess being ostensibly the whole man, and while the movie and Rudd’s performance adhere to Berg’s character, it leaves the viewer in the awkward position of being an observer and not a participant.

With Berg introduced “as is”, and with only the most minimal of character arcs to send him on, the movie soon becomes a wearying succession of exposition scenes, or opportunities to show off Berg’s gift for languages (which Rudd copies with aplomb). The early scenes with Estella show Berg trying to be “normal” but not quite knowing how to, give way to the mission to find Heisenberg, but the movie’s switch from domestic tribulations to wartime emergency – Berg literally has Heisenberg’s life, and possibly the fate of the world in his hands – dovetail at the same pace and with the same lack of urgency. Even a sequence where Berg, accompanied by military man Robert Furman (Pearce) and friendly physicist Samuel Goudsmit (Giamatti), try to thread their way through a town overrun by Germans lacks the necessary sense of imminent peril needed to make it work. Another issue is Andrij Parekh’s humdrum cinematography, which deadens the effect of Luciana Arrighi’s murky yet effective production design. Against all this, Rudd is a good choice for the enigmatic Berg, and the moments where he expresses Berg’s self-doubts, offer a rare glimpse of the man behind the façade. But, sadly, these moments aren’t plentiful enough to offset the flaws that dog the rest of the movie, and which keep it from being far more impressive than it is.

Rating: 5/10 – proficient enough without providing much more than the basics of Berg’s life as a catcher or an OSS man, The Catcher Was a Spy isn’t dull per se, just not as compelling as it could (or should) have been; Rudd aside, a quality cast is left with little to do except recite their lines in a competent manner, and any notions of political or intellectual morality are left undeveloped or overlooked.

Ideal Home (2018)

02 Monday Jul 2018

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D: Andrew Fleming / 91m

Cast: Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Allison Pill, Jake McDorman, Jack Gore, Evan Bittencourt, Kate Walsh, Jesse Luken

Erasmus Brumble (Coogan) is a well-known TV culinary expert. He’s also vain, self-centred, self-aggrandising, emotionally obtuse, and gay. His partner, Paul (Rudd), is also the producer of his TV show. They bicker, they argue, they fight, and they treat each other with as little respect as possible. When a ten year old boy (Gore) turns up at their home unexpectedly, they’re both surprised to learn that he’s Erasmus’s grandson. The boy is there because his father, Beau (McDorman), has been arrested, and despite the fact that Beau and Erasmus are estranged, Beau has sent his son there because it’s better than the boy being with social services. Unprepared for being parents, even for a potentially temporary period, the trio find themselves bonding into a family unit, even though Paul does all the work, Erasmus takes all the credit, and the boy will only eat at Taco Bell. As they adjust to each other, they learn things that allow them to grow as individuals (well, not so much with Erasmus). But when Beau is released from prison and wants his son back, what was meant to be temporary, now feels like it should be permanent…

Existing in a broad, farcical fantasy world where parenting roles are fluid and ill-defined (and yet somehow they work), Ideal Home is not a movie to be taken at all seriously. It has a positive message to make about the aptitude or suitability of gay couples to raise children, but it’s a message that’s buried below a welter of crass humour, egregious stereotyping (Erasmus’s caricature nature is only rescued by the quality of Coogan’s performance), a healthy/unhealthy (you decide) disregard for authority, and the idea that the nuclear family unit is something that’s become a bit old-fashioned. It’s not a movie that’s trying to blaze a trail for same-sex parenting, but in its own blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way, it is putting forward the idea that it’s no longer something for certain people to be afraid of. That said, if you’re easily offended by references to homosexuality in the context of raising a child (or at all), then this isn’t the movie for you. Maybe go and see Hereditary (2018) if you don’t want to watch a dysfunctional couple trying to make sense of being parents… oh, wait a minute…

Cutely delivered message aside, what this movie is most definitely about is making its audience laugh, and this it achieves with ease thanks to the quality of Fleming’s script, the boisterous partnership of Coogan and Rudd, and a kind of subdued anarchy that suits the material well. But most of all it’s laugh out loud funny: coarse, irreverent, near the knuckle on occasions, and unapologetically profane. The bickering between Erasmus and Paul is beautifully constructed, with the kind of wounding remarks made on both sides that can only come out of a long-term relationship, and Coogan and Rudd deliver these broadsides with gusto, dismantling the couple’s bond while maintaining the deep love they have for each other. In the middle of all this, Gore is a moppet with quiet attitude, deadpan for long stretches and more than a match for his two more experienced co-stars. Alas, the same can’t be said for McDorman, whose role as the boy’s father is more deus ex machina than fully developed character, and Pill, whose portrayal of a social worker is restricted to three short scenes. Otherwise it’s all about Erasmus’s annoying man-child, and Paul’s long-suffering semi-adult fighting and challenging each other and being won over by the growing appreciation for their “efforts” by a de facto orphan. And here, that’s no bad thing at all…

Rating: 7/10 – the drama that props up the comedy is too straightforward to make any impact, so it’s a good job that Fleming and his stars are on such good form in the laughs department; avoiding the kind of icky sentimentality that can so easily scupper a movie of this kind, Ideal Home is often lightweight in tone and lightweight in terms of the material, but when it’s funny, oh boy is it funny.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

04 Wednesday May 2016

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Captain America Civil War

D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 147m

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Daniel Brühl, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Martin Freeman, Marisa Tomei, John Kani, John Slattery, Hope Davis, Alfre Woodard

And so begins Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though the Marvel formula is pretty well established now, and is beginning to show through a little too often for comfort – Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) disappoints more and more with repeated viewings, Ant-Man (2015) was fun but too married to the formula for its own good – the company that should finally give us the Spider-Man movie a lot of people have been waiting for, has cannily begun the process of dismantling and rebuilding the work it carried out in Phases 1 and 2. Having introduced us to the more well-known Marvel superheroes – Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America etc. – over the next few years we’re going to meet several newer additions to the roster, so that by the time we get to Avengers: Infinity War Part II (2019), the Avengers will hopefully be comprised of a different set of superheroes.

With that in mind, there’s a lot that needs to happen before then, and while Captain America: Civil War looks as if it’s the first step in getting there, and while it’s still the best Marvel movie this side of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel are still playing it safe in terms of the characters – contrary to what you may have heard, all the main players survive in this movie – but they are trying to make things grittier and more true to life in relation to the characters’ relationships and feelings. Hence we have a falling out between Tony Stark (Downey Jr) and Steve Rogers (Evans) over whether or not the Avengers should be “policed” following the destructive events in Sokovia. Tony believes that their actions in the past have caused too much death and suffering (even though they’ve saved the world twice), while Steve feels that it shouldn’t be left up to anyone else but the Avengers as to where they go and who they stand up to; what if they’re not asked to go somewhere they should be?

CACW - scene2

It all leads to the various core Avengers – except for an absent Thor and Bruce Banner – taking sides over the issue, and for each side to bring in back up when it’s clear that a showdown is inevitable. Meanwhile, as if things aren’t bad enough, Steve’s old friend and Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes (Stan) is still on the run and apparently responsible for the bombing of a United Nations building that has taken the life of T’Chaka (Kani), the king of African nation Wakanda. His son, T’Challa (Boseman), swears to have his revenge on Barnes, and with Steve unwilling to give up on his friend, the battle lines are even more fiercely drawn. (T’Challa is one of the new characters, aka Black Panther, and will have his own movie in 2018.)

What it all boils down to is whether or not the Avengers should be autonomous or inducted into the world’s police force and used accordingly. There are good reasons on both sides for inclusion or exclusion but the interesting thing about the arguments put forward is that Tony’s are emotionally driven by his feelings of guilt over the numerous deaths that occurred in Sokovia, while Steve’s are still rooted in his past. Having fought against Hitler and Hydra both in World War II, Steve knows one thing for sure: if there’s evil to be faced and defeated, then you just do it. It’s a simple idea, but for Steve a very powerful one. And though the movie does its best to keep the narrative focused on this divisive idea, there’s a spanner in the works.

CACW - scene1

The “spanner” is this movie’s principal villain, Colonel Helmut Zemo (Brühl), who is operating in the background and using Barnes’ past to cause maximum distrust between Tony and Steve. He’s doing so for personal reasons, and credible ones at that, and they have a bearing on the division that threatens the future of the Avengers. Zemo may not be trying to destroy the world like Loki or Ultron, but it’s good to see a villain causing so much harm all by himself and without an army of aliens or robots to help him. Brühl puts in a good performance, and its one whose quiet determination isn’t overwhelmed by all the sturm und drang going on around him. But Zemo is also the device by which the Avengers reach their own accord, an uneasy truce if you like, but one that introduces a further interesting dynamic for future movies.

As for the other characters, and with so many to include, the script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely rightly concentrates on the falling out between Tony and Steve, while doing its best to address and develop issues surrounding everyone else. There’s the tentative romance brewing between Vision (Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) that has them on opposite sides (as well as Vision’s understanding of the Infinity Stone in his forehead), the return of General Thaddeus Ross (Hurt) as the man charged with bringing the Avengers into line, the various drawbacks encountered by Falcon (Mackie) and War Machine (Cheadle) as the sidekicks of Captain America and Iron Man respectively, Black Widow’s (Johansson) kick-ass yet conciliatory occupation of the middle ground when necessary, the return of Hawkeye (Renner) to make up the numbers on Cap’s side, and the return also of Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Rudd) who provides much of the comedy that makes the airport confrontation so much fun.

As mentioned before, we’re introduced to one of Phase 3’s newer characters, Black Panther. Originally meant to have a much smaller role in Captain America: Civil War, Boseman’s portrayal is extremely good, and bodes well for his solo outing. The character’s place in the MCU is assured thanks to the way in which the script integrates his own personal mission of revenge into Tony’s attempts to achieve regulation of the Avengers. Neither a part of the Avengers or against them, Black Panther is a neutral figure in terms of the differences affecting them, and acts as a buffer for the audience by following his own path.

CACW - scene3

And then there’s the little matter of finally seeing Peter Parker aka Spider-Man in a Marvel movie – at last. With all due respect to Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire, and Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield, in the space of roughly half an hour, the Russo brothers and the writers have given us the best Spidey yet seen on the big screen. Holland is terrific as the garrulous super-teen, nervous and perplexed in his meeting with Tony Stark, unabashedly starstruck in his set-to with Captain America et al. It’s an absolute joy to see him portrayed in this fashion, and for fans who stay to (almost) the very end, the caveat “Soider-Man will return” (a la James Bond) will be a welcome sight.

With this movie, Marvel has begun the next Phase of its assault on our hearts and minds and disposable incomes in such an enjoyable way that even though it’s not a movie that takes any real risks with either its characters or the storyline, it’s still a marked improvement on recent outings. The humour is there, the action/fight scenes are as inventive and thrilling as ever, and (some of) the characters are allowed to develop further, thereby consolidating our affection for them. It’s a huge juggling act, but here the writers and the Russo brothers have made such a good job of things that there are only minor gripes to be had, and those aren’t really worth mentioning. Where Guardians of the Galaxy raised the bar considerably for the MCU, Captain America: Civil War has just vaulted over it with accomplished ease.

Rating: 9/10 – while many may regard this as just Avengers 2.5, there’s more to Captain America: Civil War than meets the eye, and Marvel can be rightly proud of what they’ve achieved; as a stand-alone movie it works incredibly well, and as a part of the wider MCU it’s even more effective, being more tightly scripted and more efficiently directed than any other superhero movies out there at the moment – and yes, that does mean Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

Ant-Man (2015) and the Problem with the Marvel Cinematic Universe

23 Thursday Jul 2015

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And so we say farewell to Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a place audiences have become incredibly familiar with in the last seven years. It’s been a wildly successful run so far: including Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Marvel has made eleven movies and reaped over eight and a half billion dollars worldwide. Their movies make up the most successful franchise ever… and with Ant-Man and a further ten movies making up Phase Three due between now and July 2019, it’s clear that title isn’t going to be relinquished anytime soon.

Ant-Man

But while Ant-Man is pleasantly entertaining, and features possibly the best supporting turn in any Marvel movie – stand up, Michael Peña! – it’s also the most formulaic and predictable, from its opening scene set in 1989 and featuring an amazingly youthful Michael Douglas, to its introduction of Scott Lang (a criminal with a moral backbone), to the nefarious activities of villain Darren Cross and his attempts to replicate the work of Dr Henry Pym, to Scott’s friends/sidekicks, to the revelation that Pym is estranged from his daughter Hope (not really!), to Scott’s easy acceptance of Pym’s recruitment of him, to his quickly established command of the Ant-Man suit, to the foiled capers, and the eventual success of Cross in emulating Pym’s work. It’s a Marvel movie, true enough: safe, non-controversial, carrying a faint whiff of po-faced seriousness in amongst all the goofy humour, and sticking close to the established Marvel movie template, all the way down to the post-credits teaser for Captain America: Civil War (2016).

Ant-Man isn’t a bad film. In parts, it’s quite spirited and enjoyable, and there are clear indications that Edgar Wright knew what he was doing before Peyton Reed inherited the director’s chair (the toy locomotive derailing silently could only have come from the mind of the co-creator of the Cornetto Trilogy). The special effects are superb, with the 3D conversion (especially in the IMAX format) proving particularly immersive and impressive. But the story is bland, and so are the characters. When you have a cast that includes the likes of Douglas, Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie and Peña, surely it would be a good idea to have them do something more adventurous and original than try to steal a suit (no matter what it can do). Even the humour, usually something that Marvel gets right, feels tired and derivative of other Marvel movies.

Marvel's Ant-Man..Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd)..Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal..? Marvel 2014

And it’s this derivation, this close sticking to the perceived required template that is leading Marvel astray, leaving only Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) as their most fully realised and effective movie so far. With each stand-alone movie having to fit into the larger Marvel universe (an issue Guardians didn’t have to worry about), it’s clear that these entries lack the attention to their own stories that would allow them to be more distinctive. As it is, the similarities keep on coming: Iron Man fights another robot or batch of robots, Thor fights a race intent on destroying either Asgard or just about everything, Captain America acts as a moral compass while performing acrobatics with his shield, and both Avengers movies see the group fighting off overwhelming hordes of attackers (while also laying waste to whichever city they happen to be in). And the Hulk is sidelined because they can’t work out what to do with him.

Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and there’s obviously more than a few of them – will suggest that the movies are delivering almost exactly what they want, with all their in-jokes and easter eggs and cameos, and those post-credit scenes that keep people in their seats right until the very end of the movie, but the formula is already showing signs of becoming tired. Ant-Man was the project that prompted Marvel and producer Kevin Feige to go ahead with the whole Cinematic Universe idea; how sad then to see that the movie is less than the sum of its parts, and doing just enough to raise a smile or a jaded bout of wonder.

But maybe there is hope. In amongst the two Avengers movies (three if you count Civil War) and the Guardians and Thor sequels, there are some hopefully different movies coming, with new characters – Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel – and maybe, just maybe the promise of a new direction for the whole Universe. It would be great to see these characters carry Marvel forward into Phase Four and in doing so, offer audiences new experiences rather than the fatigue-ridden outings we’ve started to see in the last couple of years. Let’s hope so, anyway.

Rating: 6/10 – saddled with the kind of storyline and plot that would be more at home on the small screen, Ant-Man never lives up to its “Heroes don’t get any bigger” tagline; in many ways a kind of contractual obligation, it skimps on depth to provide the most lightweight and undemanding Marvel movie yet.

They Came Together (2014)

06 Sunday Jul 2014

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They Came Together

D: David Wain / 83m

Cast: Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Cobie Smulders, Christopher Meloni, Bill Hader, Ellie Kemper, Max Greenfield, Ed Helms, Jason Mantzoukas, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Ian Black, Teyonah Parris, Lynn Cohen

At a restaurant one evening, two couples – Joel and Molly (Rudd, Poehler), and Kyle and Karen (Hader, Kemper) – get to talking about how Joel and Molly got together.  Their answer: that it was like “a corny, romantic comedy kind of story”.  Molly was getting over the break up of a relationship, while Joel had just found out his long-time girlfriend Tiffany (Smulders) was cheating on him with a work rival (Black).  Cajoled into going to a Halloween costume party by friends, Joel and Molly literally bump into each other on the way, and an instant antipathy is born.  They bicker throughout the party, and Joel is unkind about Molly who overhears what he says; she walks out.  Some time later, they see each other again in a bookstore, and their mutual love of fiction brings them together.

They go for coffee, Molly introduces Joel to her son, Tucker (Skylar Gaertner), and both discover they have a (kind of) mutual connection through their work: Molly has an independent candy store, while Joel works for Candy Systems & Research, a candy store mega-company that is looking to put Molly out of business by building one of their stores directly opposite hers.  They fall in love but things don’t work out between them, and they split up.  Joel takes back Tiffany, while Molly begins dating Eggbert (Helms), her accountant.  Time passes.  Joel realises he doesn’t want to be with Tiffany and dumps her; at the same time Molly is all set to marry Eggbert.  Joel races to the stop the wedding but he’s too late: Molly has left Eggbert standing at the altar.  Joel tracks her down and declares his love for her.  Molly and Joel are reunited, and this brings their story full circle with Kyle and Karen… albeit with a twist in the tale.

They Came Together - scene

From the outset, They Came Together is not your typical romantic comedy.  It takes the standard format of the genre – boy meets girl, boy loses girl due to silly row/misunderstanding/mistake, boy gets girl back again, they both live happily ever after – and messes with that formula to its heart’s content.  In many ways, the movie plays like a straightforward rom-com but director Wain and his co-writer Michael Showalter are far more interested in playing fast and loose with the format to let a little thing like fidelity get in the way.  Indeed, the movie lets the audience know  from the start that this will be a story told with a knowing wink and a nod, and it gleefully tramples all over all kinds of genre conventions: Molly’s parents prove to be white supremacists; Tiffany’s return is predicated on her not being able to be faithful to Joel – and telling him; and Joel and Molly’s first night together sees them fall into bed kissing for all they’re worth, only for them to be shown the next morning fast asleep and fully clothed but with their lips still locked together.

In its efforts to be both clever and outrageous, They Came Together – unsurprisingly – is very much a hit-and-miss affair.  There’s a fair degree of subtlety as well, but it’s often lost amongst the more uncomfortable, gross-out moments (Joel’s sudden attraction for his grandmother (Cohen) is a case in point, though it does go somewhere that’s completely unexpected).  When it sticks to poking fun at the often sappy nature of romantic comedies (and some romantic dramas for that matter), the movie is funny, charming, and pitch perfect.  When it’s out to claim ground from movies such as American Pie (1999) or Bachelorette (2012), it doesn’t fare as well.  It’s a shame because when it is gently skewering those staple ingredients, They Came Together is relentlessly inventive and downright hilarious.

Wain movie regular Rudd, along with Poehler, are a great choice as the cute couple, sparking off each other’s performances and expertly grounding the more extreme aspects of the script.  Rudd is an old hand at this kind of material, and while Poehler’s big screen outings consist largely of voice work, here she invests Molly with a kooky warmth that complements Joel’s often confused naiveté.  In support, Meloni as Joel’s boss Roland demonstrates what not to do when needing a crap and wearing a superhero costume with an unreachable zip, Smulders plays Tiffany as a self-aware bimbo who isn’t all she seems (which leads to the movie’s most unexpected, and brilliantly surreal, moment), and Helms is both unctuous and creepy as Eggfart (sorry, Eggbert).  There are a number of cameos in the movie’s last twenty minutes – one of which leads to a wickedly hysterical (and unfortunate) encounter with a policeman – and there’s a musical interlude featuring Norah Jones that breaks so many “fourth walls” it’s frightening and ingenious at the same time.

Overall, They Came Together is an enjoyable, wacky deconstruction of the romantic comedy genre, blackly humorous in places, dubiously amusing in others, but always entertaining.  Wain and Showalter’s story may run out of steam two thirds in, but they rescue things for a flat out funny finale that encapsulates almost every rom-com cliché you can think of (including one stupendously silly sight gag).  And things are left wide open for a potential sequel: They Came Together Again anyone?

Rating: 7/10 – when it’s funny it’s a riot, but They Came Together stumbles too often to be completely successful; even so, it’s joke to laughter ratio is pretty high, and with this much effort involved, the movie qualifies as a guilty pleasure anyone can be proud to admit to.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

05 Sunday Jan 2014

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Anchorman 2 The Legend Continues

D: Adam McKay / 119m

Cast: Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Christina Applegate, Meagan Good, James Marsden, Josh Lawson, Kristen Wiig, Dylan Baker, Judah Nelson, Greg Kinnear, Harrison Ford

Nine years after Ron Burgundy’s first outing, the news anchor with the salon quality hair is back, still unrepentantly sexist, still with an ego the size of San Diego, and still oblivious to the chaos he causes around him.  Happily married to Veronica Corningstone (Applegate) and sharing the lead anchor spot with her at the World Broadcast news station, Ron’s life is devastated when news boss Mack Tannen (Ford) promotes Veronica to lead anchor and fires Ron.  Forcing Veronica to choose between him and her promotion, she chooses the job and Ron leaves her and their son Walter (Lawson).  After a stint at San Diego’s Sea World, Ron is approached by Freddie Shapp (Baker) to come work for Global News Network and be part of the first ever 24-hour news channel.  Ron agrees on the proviso that he can assemble his own news team.  He tracks down Brian Fantana (Rudd), Champ Kind (Koechner) and Brick Tamland (Carell), and with his team around him, he sets about regaining his position at the top of the news tree.

The success of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, a slow-build process fuelled by home video and extensive word of mouth, brought with it the fans’ desire for a sequel.  On its own merits, the first movie can be seen as a “happy accident”, an uneven mixture of stupidity and witlessness that was nevertheless funny at the same time.  Ron was crass and boorish in a “who-let-the-moron-out?” kind of way, while his news team almost matched him low IQ for low IQ.  Carell, then still climbing the comedy ladder, was endearing as the intellectually challenged Brick, Rudd was boyishly charming as Brian, and Koechner was – intentionally? by accident? – the funniest of all of them as Champ Kind, a man who has never heard a woman speak before.  Ferrell created a fantastic character, a vain popinjay with delusions of adequacy, and milked the character for all he was worth.  The performances made the movie, and over the years, have firmly lodged themselves in our collective comedy memories, so much so that we remember them with excessive fondness.

Sadly, that’s how they should have remained.  Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues trades heavily on our love of the characters but holds them in a kind of developmental stasis; in nearly ten years they haven’t changed a bit.  Ron is still vain, Brian is still the scent-fixated ladies man, Champ is still the least developed of the four, and Brick is still an idiot.  Veronica, having challenged Ron’s supremacy in the first movie, is demoted back to the same role again.  The secondary characters are used as a foil for the news team’s shenanigans – not least Kristen Wiig’s uncomfortable turn as Brick’s love interest, Chani – and even Ron’s nemesis at GNN, Jack Lime (Marsden), is given little to make him a serious rival for the news anchor crown.  And as with the first movie, Ron’s “story arc” is that he learns not to be so self-centred.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

A re-tread then rather than a true sequel, Anchorman 2 arrives with a tremendous weight of expectation and reveals itself as more of a vanity project for Will and the gang (including director/co-writer McKay).  There are laughs but as most of them are repeats of gags and scenes from the first movie, it’s hard to look upon them as anything but nostalgic or, worse still, lazy.  Add the awkwardness of Carell’s performance – the line between exploiting Brick’s “disability” and treating him kindly is crossed time and time again – plus two sequences that inflate the running time beyond what’s necessary, and a recurring sense that the script was a first draft, and you have a movie that never quite gels in the way its makers had hoped.  There’s an attempt at lampooning the public’s appetite for sensationalist news but it’s only briefly explored, and whatever criticism is implied by the need for ratings success over quality content is given short shrift also.

The movie does have a professional sheen to it, however, and the technical side of things is adequately handled but there are times when it even has the feel of a TV show.  Ferrell acquits himself well, despite the limitations of his own script, and is ably supported by his cast mates.  McKay directs ably enough, and the soundtrack throws up a few Eighties gems despite itself.  And as for the final, cameo-studded battle of the news stations, what starts out as a glorious free-for-all, ends up as a let-down with a poor ending…and this is, ultimately, the main fault with the movie: scenes begin strongly but soon peter out.  Once or twice in a two-hour movie is forgivable, but not all the way through.  With this much talent involved, a better return would have been expected.

Rating: 5/10 – a huge disappointment and a perfect example of when cherished, much-loved movies should be left to stand alone; uninspired, derivative and overlong.