Death at a Funeral
Maybe it's the director at the helm of the remake. The director is Neil LaBute, a playwright and filmmaker who was once known for edgy, independent dramas, but has in recent years been known for bombastic and silly ones, like the infamous remake of The Wicker Man and Lakeview Terrace. He certainly seems to be trying here, but his style of directing is all wrong for a farce such as this. It's not fast-paced enough, and is sluggish when it should be light and hilarious. He also has an annoying habit of having the actors constantly act silly, as if they know they're in a comedy. One of the joys of the original is that the characters seemed to be normal, everyday people who watched in horror as the situation spiraled out of control. Here, the cast includes names like Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, and Tracy Morgan. They're constantly mugging for the camera, giving exaggerated line readings and bugging their eyes, and always seem to be playing for the camera. This movie works better when the actors act like they're not in on the joke.
A good example of how this remake misses the point of what made the original funny is the very first scene. Rock's character, Aaron, has the unenviable task of having to hold his father's funeral at their family home. The funeral home delivers the casket and opens it, only for Aaron to discover that it's not his dad inside. They have delivered the wrong casket, and lost his father somewhere. In the original film, it was funny because it was understated, and the character seemed justifiably horrified in a comic way. Here, Rock immediately goes into what seems to be an improvised stand-up routine, making cracks like "This isn't Burger King, you just can't mess up my order!" A person in such a situation would not be trying to think of clever things to say, so it sounds phony and artificial. It's a bad sign of things to come. In fact, Rock seems miscast as the character. He's constantly landing one-liners and comebacks, when he should be feeling like he's getting in over his head as the funeral service gets out of his control. The laughs should come from the situations, not from the actors constantly reminding us we're supposed to be laughing.
There are actually a lot of casting misfires here. Martin Lawrence plays Rock's brother, Ryan. He's a playboy and a published author, which is a source of constant irritation to Aaron, since he's working on a novel himself, but can't get it published. He's supposed to be cocky and arrogant, but Lawrence takes it a bit too far to the point that I hated his character whenever he walked on the screen. The relationship between the brothers is supposed to drive a lot of the plot, but because I didn't care for one and absolutely hated the other, I found it hard to care. Other examples of wasted casting include Luke Wilson (who is completely unfunny as a former suitor of a woman attending the funeral, and is trying to win her back), Keith David as the preacher, Loretta Devine as the grieving mother, and surprisingly Peter Dinklage, as a mysterious man who shows up at the funeral, and has a history with the deceased. I say surprisingly, since Dinklage played the exact same role in the original film, but doesn't get nearly as many laughs here.
Some may complain that I'm comparing it too much to the original, and that I should view it as its own work. The problem is that the movie keeps on forcing those who have seen the 2007 film to compare it, as it's literally the same film we got last time, only not as good. This is most likely due to the fact that both versions share the same screenwriter. There have been a few cultural things added, since this version is set in L.A. instead of England, but otherwise it's basically 90 minutes of warmed-over cinematic leftovers. The one performance that does come close to capturing the madcap spirit of the original is from James Marsden, who plays the fiance of one of the attendees of the funeral. He gets the biggest laughs when his character takes some hallucinogen drugs (he mistakes them for Valium pills), and spends the entire funeral service high as a kite. It's an inspired bit of lunacy, but isn't enough to lift up this leaden retread.
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Let's start by looking at the main character, Dave Lizewski (played by Aaron Johnson). Dave is an average teenager. He admits this up-front in his narration. There's nothing special about him. He's not even the "funny one" in the small group of friends he hangs out with at school. His two best friends, Marty (Clark Duke) and Todd (Evan Peters), and him hang out at the comic book store, and basically look and talk like they've wandered in from a Judd Apatow comedy. They have a sarcastic and smart view on comics, women, and sex that would make them seem right at home in 
It's an honest question, if you think about it. Dave figures someone doesn't need powers to be a superhero. Just the right training, the right costume, and the desire to want to help people in need. Dave needs something in his life. His home life is boring, and his school life is worse, since he's constantly ignored by the girl he's long had a crush on, Katie Deauxma (Lyndsey Fonseca). His crazy idea of attempting to be a real-life crime fighter just might be the thing he needs to add a little excitement in his life. He orders a costume off the internet, modifies it a little, and takes up the name of "Kick-Ass". His first attempt at superheroics does not end up well. He tries to stop some carjackers, and ends up getting stabbed in the stomach and run over by a car. His second attempt to stop a crime he witnesses goes a little bit better, and manages to be captured by someone's camera phone. The person puts the video on Youtube, and "Kick-Ass" becomes an internet sensation. I kind of liked this aspect of the film, and how it viewed how the media would become attached to this costumed hero. Even if he wasn't that good at his job, the fact that he's actually out there sparks people's interest. It even grabs Katie's attention, though not in the way Dave probably hoped.
Up to this point, 
As for me, I was not offended, but I did become a little confused. With the arrival of Big Daddy and Hit Girl, the movie loses its sarcastic and smart tone, and seems to try to be aiming for a more Quentin Tarantino vibe of combining off the wall humor with graphic, sometimes horrifying violence. And yet, the movie seems to want things both ways. Whenever the movie is focused on Dave/Kick-Ass and his friends, the movie goes back to its Apatow feel. This results in a something that feels like it's being pulled in two different directions. While I never lost interest, I did grow tired of the movie's constant tonal shifts whenever a character walked on the screen. Director and co-writer Matthew Vaughn (
Am I saying that this is a bad movie or that you should not see it? Not at all. Like I said, the film is often very funny. And there are a lot of great moments or individual scenes. But there are too many problems on display for me to fully recommend it. One big drawback is the character of Kick-Ass himself. He's not that interesting the way he's portrayed here, nor does he have much of a personality, either in or out of costume. In fact, it's the duo of Big Daddy and Hit Girl who do most of the major action for a majority of the film. Yes, Kick-Ass takes his place in the third act, and finally gets to live up to his name, but before then, I was finding it a little hard to get excited about anything that concerned him. The movie also could have been trimmed by about 15 or 20 minutes with no sacrifice. There's a long middle section that sort of drags, and doesn't introduce that much that we haven't seen before. I never lost interest, but it did sometimes feel like the movie was spinning its wheels or padding for time.
Well, I must say, I love it when a film surprises me. 
Carell and Fey play Phil and Claire Foster. They're an ordinary couple whose lives revolve around their kids and their careers. A usual night out for them is going to the local steak house, and amusing themselves by guessing what other couples seated at the tables around them are thinking, or going to a book club event at a neighbor's house. One night, Phil decides they should do something different. They drive into Manhattan, and try to get a table at a trendy seafood restaurant called Claw. The scenes depicting this modern, ultra-trendy, and snobby restaurant are so dead-on perfect, it would be considered a parody if it wasn't so true and realistic in every regard. Phil and Claire arrive with no reservation, so naturally, the place is packed and they have to wait at the bar. Phil becomes worried that their special night is going to be a bust, so you can't really blame him for what he does next. A waitress is calling for a party of two called the "Tripplehorns". The mysterious couple are obviously a no-show, so Phil seizes the opportunity, and calls out that his wife and him are the Tripplehorns. They get a table, and the night can finally begin.
Not long after they are seated, two men approach their table. This brings the "mistaken identity" element that all screwball action comedies of this sort must contain. The men (played by Jimmi Simpson and rap artist Common) are dirty cops working for a New York crime boss (Ray Liota, hamming it up as usual). Apparently, the real Tripplehorns have stolen a flash drive with incriminating evidence, and the men want it back. Phil and Claire obviously have no clue what's going on, but get dragged into an elaborate crime plot of blackmail and shady elected officials with dirty secrets. The movie gives us the expected string of chase scenes, shootouts, and sequences where Phil and Claire will have to do things they never dreamed, like breaking into an archive office in order to get information on a person. But, it's all done with a lot more wit, energy, and intelligence than the norm. Part of the credit goes to the screenplay by Josh Klausner (
They carry a lot of the film effortlessly, but fortunately, the movie provides them with a lot of strong support. Mark Wahlberg shows up as a hi-tech computer expert/playboy who refuses to wear a shirt, James Franco and Mila Kunis have a memorable scene as the real Tripplehorns, and get a lot of laughs, and the talented Taraji P. Henson is a police detective who finds it suspicious that this suburban couple from New Jersey keep on getting involved in all these crime scenes. Other strong names in the cast include Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig, who both get small roles. Like the lead actors, the movie is smart enough to use the talents of its cast, and doesn't waste them. I also admired how no one in the movie seems to be playing dumb. Everyone here is at least of average intelligence, and dragged in over their heads by a series of events that happen in a single night. Even the villains are depicted as serious threats, instead of the bungling comic buffoons we sometimes get in these movies.
To be fair, the movie starts out being tolerable enough. It's not great or even good by any stretch of the imagination, but the first 45 minutes or so don't offend. These moments concern four different married couples (all of them best friends with each other) who go on a yearly couples getaway vacation. We learn early on that all of them have their own problems that they bring with them. Patricia (Janet Jackson) is a self-help author who seems to have a perfect relationship with her husband, Gavin (Malik Yoba). However, telltale signs of heated arguments behind closed doors hint at something else. Sheila (Jill Scott) is recovering from a bad relationship with her abusive ex, and hopes for a fresh start with her new husband, Troy (Lamman Rucker), who is struggling with unemployment. Things become awkward when her ex-husband, Mike (Richard T. Jones), shows up at the resort uninvited. Meanwhile, Diane (Sharon Leaf) and her husband Terry (Tyler Perry) seem to be happy, but Terry suspects his wife is unfaithful. Angela (Tasha Smith) thinks that her husband Marcus (Michael Jai White) is unfaithful too, and goes to extremes to try to get him to fess up, and give her access to his cellphone, so she can check all his calls and messages.
The character of Angela is the first big misstep the movie makes. She's loud, she's crass, and she's annoying to the point that we don't only wonder why Marcus stays with her, but we wonder what he sees in her in the first place. He mentions that the sex is good, but no sex, no matter how good, is worth the constant humiliation that Angela puts him through. She embarrasses him publicly every chance she gets, refuses to believe a word he says, and even goes so far as to humiliate him at his own job, where he works as an anchorman for a local sports talk TV show. When she suspects him of cheating on her, she barges in on his TV show while it's being filmed live, and chews him out. The scene is supposed to be played for laughs, but Tasha Smith is so shrill and abrasive, she made my skin crawl. Why does she think he's cheating? Because the elderly snoop who lives next door to them claims to have heard sexual sounds coming from their bedroom in the afternoon when no one's supposed to be home. Angela comes home one afternoon, hears someone making love upstairs, and grabs a loaded pistol from a closet door. She bursts into the room, fires multiple rounds into the wall and floor while she screams at her husband, only to find not Marcus in bed, but their hired gardener and his girlfriend.
This is the kind of stuff that holds 
The other couples and their problems are not handled much better. In fact, the movie becomes increasingly silly to the point that we want to cry Uncle. Almost every conversation in the movie becomes a high-pitched shouting match at some point, showing that Perry has no confidence in his own material. He doesn't let his couples work things out like intelligent individuals. They scream, they smash and break stuff, they throw tantrums, and they don't get to exhibit anything that could be considered a genuine human emotion. Subtlety has never been a strong suit of Tyler Perry's past films, but here, he goes for broke and comes up empty handed. There's not a single moment here that's not contrived, manipulated to a ludicrous degree, or hollow. There's also a total lack of a dramatic arc, with Perry's screenplay throwing in crises and plot developments seemingly at random.
The film itself is a loose remake of a 1981 film that probably seemed cheesy and outdated even when it came out, but has gone on to become a cult classic. The new movie stays fairly faithful to the ideals of the original. It's a big, dumb take on Greek Mythology with lots of monsters, special effects, and questionable acting. The movie's obviously been given a new coat of paint, thanks to the CG special effects, which do an admirable job of bringing the various monsters and creatures to life. While Ray Harryhausen's stop motion effects in the original have their charm, I dare anyone not to say there was room for improvement, which this movie provides. It also gives us something I don't think anyone needed - unnecessary 3D. In an attempt to cash in on the recent trend, Warner Bros. performed a very quick transition to take advantage of 3D technology at the last minute, and it shows. It's distracting, it makes the visuals muddy and dark, and it adds absolutely nothing whatsoever to the film itself. If the viewer has a choice, I say go with the 2D version. You'll save money, get a better picture, and won't have to wear those glasses for the entire movie.
The plot, obviously, is utter nonsense, which makes it mysterious as to why the movie spends so much time setting it up. It's set in a time of man and Ancient Gods, and as the film opens, man is starting to get tired of the treatment from the Gods on Mount Olympus. The Gods seem to take whatever they want, bring disaster and famine, and still expect the people to worship them. There are cries of rebellion amongst the people, and now the head God Zeus (Neeson) is starting to grow restless. His brother Hades (Fiennes) offers a suggestion - He goes down to the city of Argos (where the Queen recently made the blasphemous comment that her daughter, Andromeda, is more beautiful than any of the Gods), and tells them that unless Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) is sacrificed, the Gods will unleash their most terrible beast, the Kraken, upon them. The King of Argos sends a small band of warriors on a journey to find a way to defeat the Kraken. Amongst those men is Perseus (Sam Worthington), a Demigod who just happens to be the son of Zeus, and holds a personal grudge against Hades after he killed his adopted human father (Pete Posthelthwaite).
We see potential everywhere. When Perseus and his soldiers venture to the Underworld to track down Medusa, the movie actually manages to build some short-lived tension. It gives you the feeling of the kind of spectacle this movie could have been. Everything about the movie keeps on selling itself short, though. The characters are bone dry, as are the things they talk about. Maybe this is why most of the cast (especially Worthington) appear to be phoning it in here. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes at least seem to be enjoying themselves, and know just how much to ham it up and when to pull back, but they're not utilized enough. In fact, even though Hades is treated as the overall villain (he's secretly plotting against Zeus to gain control of Olympus), he never comes across as a real threat. A big part of this has to do with how little he has to do here, and how quickly he's written out of the film in a highly anticlimactic "final battle".
