I've fallen a little behind on my reviews lately, but with the summer movie season about to kick off this Friday with "The Avengers" I wanted to get caught up on the films I've seen over the last couple months, but haven't reviewed. As the headline indicates, these will be brief reviews as I have six films to cover.
Project X (R, 88 minutes, March 2, 2012, Warner Bros. Pictures)
This "found footage-style" comedy centers on a group of high schoolers who plan the ultimate party to up their social standing at their school. All sorts of mayhem ensues, some of which is very funny, but ultimately this feels like a series of comic vignettes rather than a cohesive whole. The three main characters (played by Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, and Jonathan Daniel Brown) don't really evolve or develop over the course of the film, leaving it to function as nothing more than a mildly amusing diversion. One potential issue with this film is the argument that high school kids will want to emulate the antics of the characters, but I personally think anyone who actually thinks that this scenario could happen in real life without serious consequences is pretty thick in the head. This film is meant as a comic diversion, and that's really all it is. 2 stars out of 4.
Jeff Who Lives at Home (R, 83 minutes, March 9, 2012, Paramount Vantage)
This indie comedy / drama from writer / director brothers Jay and Mark Duplass ("Cyrus," "Baghead," "The Puffy Chair") is a simple little film that isn't all that complex thematically, but is still funny and moving. It centers on thirty-something Jeff (Jason Segel), who still lives with his mother (Susan Sarandon). When she sends him out on search of some wood glue to fix a broken shutter, his life changes over the course of a single day. The story here is barely enough for a full-length feature, as the film runs just over 80 minutes, and there's a subplot involving Sarandon's character that I felt really added nothing thematically. Segel continues to play basically the same character in every film (the one exception being 2009 comedy "I Love You Man"), but Ed Helms really shines here as Jeff's brother Pat. This is easily the best performance I've seen from Helms, and it's one that proves he may have a career outside of "The Office" and the "Hangover" franchise...or even outside of comedy altogether, for that matter. The beautiful Judy Greer, who was excellent in a small role in last year's best film, "The Descendants," is even better here, and I really look forward to seeing more from her. 3 stars out of 4.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (PG-13, 107 minutes, March 9, 2012, CBS Films)
This indie drama has been heavily marketed in independent film circles for the last six months or so, and as it features two very talented actors in Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, I had to give it a shot. I feel like the potential was there for this story (which is based on the book by Paul Torday) to be a good film, and maybe even a great one. Unfortunately, the script from Simon Beaufoy ("Slumdog Millionaire," "127 Hours") isn't particularly written in places, has an unnecessarily subplot involving Islamic extremists, and, above all else, the ending is dreadful. Not the resolution necessarily, but the whole final act, where at least three different possible endings are dangled in front of you, only to have things move on to something else. By the time the resolution finally comes, I was so fed up with the whole thing that I didn't care what happened, and it didn't help that one aspect of the ending felt horribly contrived. McGregor and Blunt do have great chemistry, and I did find myself really caring about the characters, at least up until that final act. Amr Waked gives a great performance as a wealthy sheikh who wants to introduce the Scottish sport of salmon fishing into a river in Yemen. This is a film that could have been good, but ends up getting too bogged down in cheap storytelling. 2 stars out of 4.
21 Jump Street (R, 109 minutes, March 16, 2012, Columbia Pictures)
This big screen adaptation of the 1980s T.V. series starring Johnny Depp did exactly what it needed to with its goofy premise: turned it into a ridiculous comedy. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum star as young police officers who, due to their youthful appearances, go undercover in a local high school in an attempt to break up an emerging drug ring. Unlike "Project X," this film plays like a complete narrative, and the action / comedy elements are much more effective. Hill has always had great comic timing, but Tatum does much better here than in the seemingly endless list of romantic dramas he's been in; perhaps he has a better acting future in comedy. Dave Franco (younger brother of James) gives a great performance as the head of the high school drug ring; Ellie Kemper (Erin from "The Office") is largely wasted in a useless subplot. 3 stars out of 4.
The Cabin in the Woods (R, 95 minutes, April 13, 2012, Lionsgate)
This deconstructionist horror comedy written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (who also directed), is particularly difficult to review, because I don't want to spoil any of the film's twists. Suffice to say that what starts out as a relatively standard horror setup (a group of college-aged friends head to a cabin in the middle of nowhere for the weekend) turns into something much more complex. The slasher elements are there, and while the film is never scary, one particular scene involving a mounted wolf's head is incredibly suspenseful. But elements of science fiction and even fantasy are introduced as the story evolved into an increasingly bizarre deconstruction and parody of the entire horror genre. The only recognizable actor among the leads is Chris Hemsworth ("Thor"), but Kristin Connolly does a great job as the main character, and Fran Kranz steals every scene the stereotypical, stoned-out-of-his-mind pothead. This is easily the most quotable film of the year so far, and many of the gems in the dialogue belong to Kranz. I will say that by the end of the film, I was really rooting for the surviving characters to make it out of their situation, and would even go as far as to say I cared about them, which is extremely rare for a horror film. This is a high concept genre film that satirizes and sends up its own genre, so it's hard for me to know who will like it. But if you go into it with an open mind, and understand that you won't be getting what you expect, you'll hopefully have a blast. I know I did. 3 stars out of 4.
The Five-Year Engagement (R, 124 minutes, April 27, 2012, Universal Pictures)
This is a film I feel like I need to see again to fully appreciate. It's the rare film that's stayed with me even several days after seeing it, and I'm not sure yet if the good aspects of the story are just getting the better of me, or if this really is a true gem among romantic comedies that's just not being embraced because it's challenging. The title basically tells what the film is about, so I'll say that I really enjoyed Emily Blunt's performance as always, and while Jason Segel played another version of the same character yet again, it still works. Chris Pratt (NBC's "Parks and Recreation") and Alison Brie (NBC's "Community") steal every scene they're in, and the script from Segel and Nicholas Stoller (who also directed; this is the same team that made "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," a comedy favorite of mine), is generally good, though there are some pacing issues here and there and the ending is a tad cheesy. In fact, this film is at least as much drama as it is comedy, and it
doesn't have the same gut-busting level of humor as most Judd Apatow
productions, though there are some very funny moments. The challenging aspect of this film is its realism...these two characters are flawed people who make mistakes, and not just cookie-cutter movie plot mistakes that can be washed away. They feel like real, flawed human beings, and I absolutely loved that about them. The theme of this film is that no two people are perfect for each other, in fact probably no two people are even sixty percent perfect for each other. That's not a popular notion in today's world of fairy-tale romances, but the fact of the matter is that it's true. All you have to do is look at the divorce rate, in America and around the world, to see what happens when people place to high of a priority on someone else making them happy. The idea that people can love each other deeply, but still have to get through arguments and differences and changes is not a popular one, particularly among the escapist romantic comedy crowd, but it is a realistic one. In that respect, I think this film is much more challenging than most mainstream romantic comedies, but it's better for it. 3 stars out of 4.
