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Failure
to Launch: You
Got That Right How depressing that the first movie I go to see after the Academy Awards is an insulting, predictable, no-brainer of a “cute” comedy. After all the Oscar blather about how important it is to see a MOVIE! In a THEATER! With PEOPLE! To fully enjoy the BIG-SCREEN EXPERIENCE!!! It turns out my first venture into the multiplex since that load of Hollywood hot air is an extended sitcom, and a pretty poor one at that. Matthew McConaughey, whom I swear hasn’t been in a good movie since Dazed and Confused (okay, EdTV and 13 Conversations About One Thing are worthwhile DVD rentals), plays a 35-year-old who still lives in Mom and Dad’s house. Apparently, the not-so-young man isn’t alone. His two slacker pals, who join him for paintball, rock climbing, surfing, and idiotic slapstick, have similar living arrangements. Mom and Dad, respectively portrayed by Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw, enlist Sarah Jessica Parker to romance their son and infuse him with the confidence to finally leave the nest. This brings up a few interesting questions. If the folks want their son out of the house so bad, why not change the locks while he’s out selling his boats or horsing around with his pals? Or just toss his stuff out in the yard? Or better yet, be having sex on the living room floor when the McConaughey character walks in with one of his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriends? Parker’s therapist-cum-prostitute—she insists she doesn’t sleep with her clients, but…has a wacky roommate and no romantic life of her own. The actress has never really engaged me, and whatever pleasures her HBO series Sex and the City gave me can be attributed to the fine ensemble cast and clever writing. Neither trait is employed in Failure to Launch. Sure, we know going in that these two are eventually going to fall for each other, but would it have killed screenwriters Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember—not surprisingly, veteran sitcom writers—to come up with at least one interesting twist, anything to make these characters resemble real people? The whole movie seems to have been pieced together from bits and pieces of other “cute” movies—not to mention television shows--with a little Adam Sandler goofiness here, a little Farrelly Brothers animal cruelty humor there. If the recent parody film had not appropriated the title Date Movie, it would have fit this generic dud perfectly. Former football great and TV sports commentator Terry Bradshaw isn’t bad, aside from a nude scene that’s more unflattering than a Dennis Franz NYPD Blue bareass marathon. Or John and Yoko on the cover of that Two Virgins album. Amazing what you can slip by the rating boards these days. Academy Award winner (!) Bates wisely keeps her distance from the movie’s more annoying sequences. Zooey Deschanel, with a cleverly placed Reddi Whip can at her disposal, makes the most of the kooky roommate character, considering what little she is given to work with by director Tom Dey and the hack scripters. She practically steals the movie, although in the case of Failure to Launch, I’d call it petty theft. The movie is designed to be a feel-good romantic comedy, but its underlying cynicism about the dating game is enough to send even the most hardhearted running to Dr. Phil. Other reasons to dislike Failure to Launch: the presence of a precocious little kid and the fact that the filmmakers had planned to shoot portions of the movie right here in Destin before they bailed out on us. Actually, we should be grateful. Bottom Line:
That title might have worked for a wacky astronaut comedy (Don
Knotts, R.I.P.) or a laugh riot about male impotence. Either would
have been an improvement. |
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V for Vendetta:
Playing Cat and Mouse in Dystopia V for Vendetta is an ambitious, complicated movie that tries for a lot and sometimes succeeds. The totalitarian government of the film’s version of England is compared to every overbearing, dangerous government of recent history, making parallels to everything from Nazi Germany (naturally) to the modern-day United States. It’s inevitable that a film making such ambitious comparisons will stumble sometimes, and V is no exception. As Evey, Natalie Portman gets involved in the resistance against the relatively new English government by accident, when Hugo Weaving as V saves her from a trio of malicious police officers who catch her out after curfew. Her parents were early casualties of the government, giving Evey personal reasons to resist the narrow-minded, violent regime, but she doesn’t act until she meets up with V. Her involvement with V for overthrowing the government primarily consists of inspiring the regular citizens to action. You see, V is the most effective terrorist/freedom fighter in history, managing to stage media coups entirely on his own, even in this highly armed and highly paranoid version of England—among other extraordinary acts. When the film doesn’t push this idea at us too much, it’s possible to believe, or at least suspend disbelief, in V’s actions. However, when the story makes V too incredible, leaning toward giving him superpowers in addition to wit, good strategy, and ballet skill with knives, it abuses the leeway most people give to films like this. Nowhere is this more evident than in the final fight, where knife-bearing V defeats at least eight machine-gun-armed military men in one of the more ridiculous final fights I’ve ever seen. Add this to a few strange, mostly unjustified and under-explained twists, and it creates unhealthy skepticism in the viewer. I like my action movies on the pretentious side, so I found V for Vendetta enjoyable enough. It was written by the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote The Matrix, so if you liked the philosophical advances of those films, you might take better to V’s insistence that its story is bigger—that it’s not just a good tale but also an important one. It tries to do this primarily through trying to tie it to history. Some of the history is more distant, like the story of Guy Fawkes, the English saboteur who inspires the mask that V wears the entire film, and some is more recent. Even people who don’t find it patently ridiculous to draw lines between our current administration and the more infamously dangerous governments of the last century might find V’s self-righteousness a little wearying. Those who aren’t inclined to make such comparisons might find it downright silly. For me, the best way to deal with that was to avoid taking the political bait the film presented and enjoy the action-film trappings it presented, enjoying the wider historical scope the film tries to employ. However, if you prefer to watch your films from a perspective of engagement rather than observation, it might be best to get your action fix later this season. Bottom line: V for vainglorious |
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