The Lame, Almost Laugh Free LAST VEGAS Isn't Completely Lifeless At Least

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

LAST VEGAS (Dir. Jon Turteltaub, 2013)

Four Oscar winners - Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Kline - join together for a film that will win no Oscars. The famous foursome play friends since childhood (forget that their ages range from 66 to 76) who hit Vegas for some bachelor party shenanigans in this crappy comedy that critics everywhere are calling THE HANGOVER for the geriatric set.

I’m not a fan of THE HANGOVER movies, but they at least have more of an attempt at a narrative; LAST VEGAS just piles on a bunch of city of sin set-piece ideas (the guys judge a bikini competition, get in a bar fight, pretend to be mob bosses, etc.) that seem right off the top of the head of the film’s screenwriter Dan Fogleman (CARS, CRAZY STUPID LOVE, THE GUILT TRIP).

The bare as bones back story is that in their youth, Douglas and De Niro’s characters had been in a love triangle of sorts with a girl who chose De Niro. The gruff as ever De Niro is now a widower who’s angry at Douglas, now engaged to woman half his age, for not coming to his wife’s funeral.

Other loose story threads are that Kline has been given a “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” card from his wife (Johanna Gleason) so he’s got a HALL PASS thing going on, and that Freeman is sneaking out on his overprotective son (Michael Ealy), who thinks his old man is going on a church retreat.

Another Oscar winner, Mary Steenburgen, pops up as a torch singer in a rundown lounge, all smiling and amused at the guy’s antics. Predictably Douglas and De Niro both fall for her in scenes devised to give the proceedings some emotional weight, but end up feeling shoehorned into this glib series of geezer sex gags.

There’s also the cringe-worthy scenario of the fellows bossing around Jerry Farrera (Turtle from Entourage). Their Parks Hotel concierge (Weeds’ Romany Malco) told Farrera that the guys are the heads of four crime syndicate families so he’d be scared into serving them. That obviously means that there’s terrible tough-guy jokes in the miserable mix to contend with too.

I have to say though, that castling Turtle does nail the air-headed Entourage guys-bonding-through-partying ethos the film is going for. The energy the leads put into their performances does elevate the flimsy material at times I also feel I should add.

But while it’s far from lifeless, LAST VEGAS is a lame, almost laugh-free, piece of PG-13 fluff that will please only incredibly undemanding crowds. 



It’s funny (funnier than anything in the movie, anyway) how Kline comes off like William H. Macy in WILD HOGS. That is, the one guy that you’d thought wouldn’t get caught slumming it up in such commercial dreck like this. However, more power to him because he looks like he’s having a better time than anybody else onscreen. I can't help thinking that his character and performance so deserve to be part of a much better movie.

More later...

New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 10/8/13

The two big releases on home video today are two of last summer’s biggest critical duds: M. Night Shyamalan’s AFTER EARTH, and Todd Phillips’ THE HANGOVER PART III. AFTER EARTH, which features Will Smith and his son Jaden in a sci-fi adventure I can barely remember the plot of (read my review from when it hit theaters last May), is available in a Two Disc Combo (Blu-ray / DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy), and a single disc DVD edition. Special Features: an Alternate Opening, and a bunch of featurettes (mostly behind-the-scenes mini-documentaries) adding up to almost an hour.

The third and final entry in THE HANGOVER series, in which Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zack Galifianakis reprise their roles for even less laughter than before (read my review), is also out in a Blu-ray + DVD + UltraViolet Combo Pack, but its DVD edition is 2 discs. Special Features include such supposed wackiness as “Replacing Zack: The Secret Auditions,” “The Wolfpack’s Wildest Stunts,” “Pushing the Limits,” “Zach Galifianakis in His Own Words,” “Action Mash-Up,” “Inside Focus: The Real Chow,” Extended Scenes, and Outtakes.

For those looking for something of actual quality, Joss Whedon’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is out today in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The charming black and white production, was filmed at Whedon’s swanky house in Los Angeles over 12 days, with veterans of the directors’ TV shows such as Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Reed Diamond, and Clark Gregg spouting out the original text of Shakespeare’s 16th century play. Bonus material consists of two commentary tracks (one with Whedon; one with Whedon and almost the entire cast), a 22 minute featurette “Much Ado About Making Nothing,” a 6 minute featurette “Bus Ado About Nothing,” and the “Sigh No More” Music Video. 

Jacob Hatley’s AIN’T IN IT FOR MY HEALTH: A FILM ABOUT LEVON HELM is another quality release out this week. Fans of The Band, the Americana genre, or just good music in general should enjoy this 2010 documentary, which has Hatley hanging with Helm, who sadly passed away last year, in his Woodstock home recalling his history as he works on a new solo album. There are many highlights here, both musical and anecdotal, but my favorite is Helm killing it on a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City.” Over 50 minutes of deleted scenes are included, but folks who just want to see the film alone should note that it’s also available on Netflix Instant. 

Other notable feature films debuting on home video today: James DeMonaco’s surprise horror hit THE PURGE (starring Ethan Hawke!), Sebastián Cordero’s straight-to-Blu ray/DVD/VOD sci-fi thriller EUROPA REPORT, Josh Boone’s ensemble rom com STUCK IN LOVE, and Liz W. Garcia’s Kristen Bell comedy THE LIFEGUARD.

On the older films front there’s the 40th Anniversary Edition of William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST (just in time for Halloween!), the 30th Anniversary Edition of MONTY PYTHON’S THE MEANING OF LIFE (has a new hour long documentary but otherwise the bonus material comes from previous editions), Blu ray box sets of the individual STAR WARS trilogies, and the Criterion Collection edition of René Clair’s 1947 fantasy comedy I MARRIED A WITCH, starring Veronica Lake. 

TV season sets out today include: American Horror Story: Asylum, Bones: The Complete Eighth Season, Psych: The Complete Seventh Season, White Collar: Season Four, The Six Million Dollar Man: Season 4, and Robot Chicken: Season Six.

More later...

THE HANGOVER PART III: At Least It's Not In 3D

Now playing at every shopping mall multiplex in North America:

THE HANGOVER PART III

(Dir. Todd Phillips, 2013)

Nobody actually has a hangover in THE HANGOVER PART III (well, except during the end credits – sorry if that’s a Spoiler!), but the movie itself is a hangover from the events of the first two films.



The premise of this second sequel to the 2009 smash hit, billed as “The Epic Finale To THE HANGOVER Trilogy,” is thankfully different from the first two (PART II was identical to the first except that it was set in Bangkok), but it still follows the same pattern of normal guys (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) getting more and more trapped in the circles of insane people (Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong). 

Writer/director Phillips shoots the HANGOVER movies in the style and tone of action thrillers; they don’t resemble the comic worlds of the Apatowian universe at all. This approach doesn’t appeal to me because the humor, what genuine little there is here, feels misplaced.

But onto the plot, this time written by Philips and Craig Mazin (also co-writer of the second one) which concerns Jeong escaping from jail in Thailand, and conning the “Wolfpack,” as Alan calls them, into stealing a bunch of gold bars from John Goodman as an angry crime boss.



Goodman, who so could've phoned his part in, kidnaps Justin Bartha, who always gets the short end of the stick in these movies, leaving Cooper, Helms, and Galifianakis to track down Jeong in, you guessed or saw the trailers or TV spots, Las Vegas.

Now, I love Galifianakis and think he’s one of the most hilarious stand-up comedians working today, but his clueless character shtick again wears out as early as the end of his second scene.

That scene by the way features Jeffrey Tambor reprising his role as Galifianakis’s father, again exasperated by his dysfunctional son’s behavior.

As the likable yet slightly douchy Phil, Cooper does as well as he can with the hectic material, and just like the last couple of entries, Helms’ characterization largely consists of being frustrated and baffled by Galifianakis’s extreme stupidity. Come to think of it, Helms functions as an audience surrogate for anybody who doesn’t think this stuff is as funny as the cast and crew supposedly do.

As for Jeong, he's doing the same over-the-top shenanigans he did in the previous films, and on Community, and both cases it's gone way beyond tiresome (especially on the post-Dan Harmon episodes of the NBC sitcom).

I like these guys, but all three HANGOVER movies are over-hyped lame comedies that have a measly minimum of actual laughs. Bet you can take all the funny moments in this one and make a less than 5-minute Funny or Die video clip out of it. 

Bet that would include a few moments of Melissa McCarthy’s bit as a pawn shop owner/Billy Joel fan that Galifianakis flirts with, and with hope would edit out the useless Heather Graham cameo and more importantly the shot of the giraffe decapitation presented as the movie’s big opening joke. It’s one that has mostly been spoiled by the heavy marketing of this movie, but be prepared to see a particularly grotesque shot more if you pony up admission.

It’s one of many places that made me so thankful that THE HANGOVER PART III isn’t in 3D like every other summer blockbuster wannabe out there. I’m also very thankful that they are promising that the franchise is closing up shop and that this will be the last one.

It better be because three of these dark gross-out anti-comedies is three too many.

More later...

Warning: The Sordidly Unfunny 21 AND OVER Opens Today

Opening today at nearly every multiplex in the Triangle area: 

21 AND OVER 

(Dirs. Jon Lucas & Scott Moore, 2013)

After writing a string of crappy commercial comedies, including FOUR CHRISTMASES, GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIEND’S PAST , THE CHANGE-UP, and THE HANGOVER movies, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore present their directorial debut, 21 AND OVER, an extremely crappy college party comedy. 

It’s a movie that could be considered “teensploitation,” that is, a film directed at teens by way of ingredients such as sex, alcohol, drugs, and violence. In the course of one crude crazy night, protagonists Miles Teller and Skylar Astin encounter all of these as they try to get their wasted friend (Justin Chon) back home in time for a medical school interview early in the morning.

That’s all the plot there is here. There’s no twist or satiric take on this well worn material, there’s no likability factor present with any of the characters, and worst of all there are no laughs. Not one.

It comes off like a bunch of outtakes from THE HANGOVER movies, but with no star power (there’s not one recognizable name in the cast). It’s like Lucas and Scott decided to make a movie out of the end credits photo collage of wild hard-drinking partying that both HANGOVER movies end with, so we get more than one amped up montage of beer guzzling, shot taking, and drug-taking action.

The first time directors also thought a scene featuring slow motion projectile vomit, spewed by Chon from the top of a mechanical bull, would equal big laughs, but I have a feeling they equate disgusted groans with laughs.

All of this sordid unfunny stuff is made worse by the lack of charisma in the two leads, Teller and Astin.

As the two tired as Hell archetypes, Teller is the snarky obnoxious pushy one who won’t take “no” to partying as an answer, and Astin is the more sensible sensitive one who spends the movie pining for a coed (Sarah Wright). Wright, of course, has a bullyish brute for a boyfriend (Jonathan Keltz) that Astin and Teller tangle with throughout the movie.

Although they drink heavily, Teller and Astin never act drunk. They always seem to have enough of a head on their shoulders to weather what comes at them. Even very late in the movie, when they get captured by angry girls from a Hispanic sorority (who aim to punish them for a crime that I’d rather not go into) and get forced into a gay panic scenario, they seem completely sober. I wish I wasn’t when watching this.

Seth MacFarlane got a lot of flack earlier this week for how racist, sexist, and homophobic his jokes as Oscar host were, but the real problem to me wasn’t his subject matter, it was that none of it was funny. I believe that in terms of comedy, nothing is sacred - no topic should be too taboo - but there has to be some element of relatable humor involved.

In the case of 21 AND OVER there is not one trace of amusement. It’s a base exercise that makes the HAROLD & KUMAR movies look like high comic art. Here’s hoping its target audience will skip it. This is one time that a real night of drinking and debauchery would sure do them a lot more good than seeing this pile of pure puke.

More later...

THE HANGOVER PART II: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE HANGOVER PART II (Dir. Todd Phillips, 2011)

The sequel to the largest grossing R-Rated comedy of all time is exactly everything I thought it would be. I haven't seen such a blatant retread of a huge hit's premise and jokes since AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL.

Again we have Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms playing the man-child protagonists who wake up to find themselves in way over their heads after a night of stag party debauchery. I actually recycled that sentence largely from my review of the first one - I figure if they can recycle it, so can I.

This time the guys are in Bangkok. Helms is about to get married to Jamie Chung, and Cooper, Galifianakis, and Justin Bartha are there to attend the wedding.

Chung has a disapproving father (Nirut Sirichanya) who humiliates Helms at their reception dinner, so you know Helms will stand up to him in the end.

Bartha went missing in the first one, so their idea of mixing it up is to have Chung's younger brother (Mason Lee) disappear.

The night starts at a resort in Thailand where Helms is talked into having just one beer with the "Wolfpack," as Galifianakis calls them, on the beach with a bonfire. What could go wrong?

Just like before (okay I'll stop saying that - it could get exhausting) the camera pans up to the sky and the screen fades. We flash forward and we're in a scummy hotel room in the city of Bangkok. Galifianakis's hair head has been shaved, Helms has a Mike Tyson tattoo on his face, there's a capuchin monkey jumping around, and there's a severed finger with Lee's school ring on it among all the bottles, cocaine, and other debris from the previous night.

Oh yeah, there's also the crazy coked up Ken Jeong who Galifianakis invited as his +1 to the wedding sleeping on the floor.

So the 'Wolfpack" hit the streets to figure out what happened to Lee and they wind through a convoluted scenario involving Monks, she-male prostitutes, Russian thugs, and an obligatory car-chase that includes the classically clichéd fruit cart scene.

The problem is this material is geared more for shock value than laughs. The leads have an energy going in their performances, playing amusingly off each other, but while Cooper and Helms almost overdo their effort, Galifianakis doesn't seem to care.





Galifianakis can be funny with just an expression, and his eccentric childishness has its moments, but wears thin way before the halfway mark.

In the middle of it all there's a surprising appearance by Paul Giamatti, who has a nice sharp scene or 2 - I guess to go further about it would be a Spoiler!

Otherwise, despite the absorbing locale, and a few good lines here and there, THE HANGOVER PART II is a tedious, definitively unnecessary, and supremely unsatisfying sequel.

Actually the photos showing what happened during the guys' blackouts during the end credits are kind of funny, but again that's something they did in the first one.

More later...

GET HIM TO THE GREEK: The Film Babble Blog Review

GET HIM TO THE GREEK
(Dir. Nicholas Stoller, 2010)











In FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL Russell Brand, as a tawdry British pop star named Aldous Snow, stood out in a strong ensemble of heavy comedy hitters enough so that his character has been granted a very rare entity - a spin-off vehicle of his own. Joining him is Jonah Hill in a different role than the possibly gay hotel employee he embodied in the previous film. 




Here Hill is an ambitious record company intern who wants to stage a concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of Brand's band Infant Sorrow's best selling live album recorded at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. 




Hill's boss, played to the hilt by Sean "Diddy" Combs, at first vetoes the idea, but comes around and declares that this is Hill's moment to shine. It's a tall order - Brand has recently fallen off the wagon after 7 years because his girlfriend Jackie Q (Rose Byrne) has just left him and his last record, the oh-so-wrong "African Child", was a huge highly derided flop. 




Hill has 3 days to transport the famously decadent and destructive rocker from London to L.A. with a stop in New York for an appearance on the Today Show. Of course, the premise is that none of this goes smoothly and, ahem, wackiness ensues. 




To muddy the water, Hill leaves for the trip thinking he's broken up with his live-in-girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss from Mad Men) after a fight about her wanting them to move to Seattle. He arrives to an already wasted Brand who thinks the concert isn't for a couple of months. With a clock countdown alerting us to their stressful schedule we then go through a series of party set-pieces in which Brand predictably side-tracks Hill with sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll at every turn. 




Because this is a Judd Apatow production we can't just have an excess of crude in-your-face comedy, we have to get to the heart of these guys in the last reel. Emotional confessions have to be made and tears have to be cried, but since the volume of laughs leading to that has been well over the limit of, say, THE HANGOVER's, I'm not going to complain. 




Brand's timing and chemistry along with Hill's dependable awkward schtick is impeccable. He's "on" even, or especially, when his character is off in his own whacked out world; the king of his own little adolescent fantasy land he's built up around him, as Spinal Tap manager Ian Faith would put it.





Combs, or "Diddy" or whatever he goes by today, undoubtedly steals the movie every time he's on the screen. At first recalling Tom Cruise's turn as profane movie exec Len Grossman in TROPIC THUNDER, Combs goes further bringing a kind of gangsta gravitas to every word he speaks. His speechifying about the power of "mindfucking" to Hill is one of the funniest bits of the movie. 




As comedies go this year GET HIM TO THE GREEK is a much better than average romp with only a few scenes I could do without. I think most folks will know exactly what they're getting when they go in and will be fine with that. Under Apatow's tutelage director Stoller has assembled a sturdy comic farce with all the trimmings - tons of celebrity cameos, funny freak-outs, and rapid fire one-liners.




It may not single handedly save this summer from its overriding suckiness, but it's an extremely amusing 90 minute reprieve.





More later...