The comedy pairing of writer and director Adam McKay and actor Will Ferrell turned their attention towards the buddy action movie for their fourth feature, The Other Guys. Their familiar see-what-sticks attitude and encouragement of improvisation often produces mixed to plain bad results (see Talladega Nights: The Story of Ricky Bobby), but every now and then gold can be struck, with the huge following that was generated in the wake of cult favourite Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy being the most obvious example. The Other Guys falls easily into the second category, with the sheer volume of belly laughs inspired by a fast-paced first hour going some way to gloss over the disappointment of the stretched-out, action-heavy final 50 minutes.
The NYPD prides itself on its two superstar cops, Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson) and Danson (Dwayne Johnson), who regularly cause millions of dollars worth of damages on the city streets while chasing down low-level criminals, but doing so in style. When their own arrogance and plain stupidity puts them out of action, partners Gamble (Ferrell) and Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg), one a goofy desk jockey and the other a neurotic short-fuse (I'm sure you can guess which is which) must step up to keep the city safe. While investigating a scaffolding permit violation by billionaire businessman Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan), the pair stumble upon a conspiracy involving mass fraud that goes all the way to the very top. They are met with resistance by a group of heavies led by Australian Roger Wesley (Ray Stevenson), and from their very own bosses and co-workers, but must get past their own personality clashes to bring the culprit to justice.
It's a shame that The Other Guys runs out of steam long before the closing credits, as there is real chemistry between the two leads. The film eventually falls back on a montage of shoot-outs and car chases to become the very thing it started out satirising, but Ferrell and Wahlberg have fun while it lasts. Wahlberg makes for a hilarious straight-man and the perfect foil for Ferrell to bounce his goofball ad-libs off, before the latter turns up the weirdness and decibel levels up to intolerable levels. The big joke is that Gamble is incredibly plain, but inexplicably attracts gorgeous women, including his 'bland' wife played by Eva Mendes. Hoitz's reaction to meeting the woman his partner describes as a 'big old gal' provides the film's funniest moment. There's great support from Michael Keaton, who gets to flex his comedy muscles after a long stint out of the game, but the meathead rival partners played by Damon Wayans Jr. and Rob Riggle are irritating from the get-go. A mixed bag for sure, but one of the better efforts from Ferrell and his posse.
At first glance, Elf would appear to be one of countless holiday-season cash-ins with daft costumes and even sillier special effects, featuring a well-known actor performing pantomime on a bigger budget and grabbing an easy pay-day in the process. That is stars Will Ferrell, one of cinema's most naturally hilarious funnymen who seems to be caught up in an endless loop of mediocrity - Blades of Glory and Stranger than Fiction excluded - as the titular human-turned-elf, bodes even worse. Throw in some little people dressed in elf costumes and a romance involving surely the only woman to accept a date with a man who claims to be from the North Pole, and it would seem like a movie tailor-made for a critical beat-down.
Only Elf is genuinely charming, and even more alarmingly, incredibly funny at times. Using Ferrell's man-child comedy chops to the fullest extent, this may actually be the best work Ferrell has ever done. He plays Buddy, an orphan accidentally whisked off to Santa's homeland as a baby. Taken in by the sympathetic Papa Elf (the wonderful Bob Newhart), it doesn't take long until Buddy is towering over his adoptive father and his co-workers. Learning of his biological pop Walter (played by James Caan) and that he is in fact a human, the 6-foot elf journeys to New York City to be with his real family, only for his miserable publisher dad to shun him. Buddy learns that his world no longer buys into tales of flying reindeers and a jolly fat man who knows if we've been bad, disbelieving in the 'magic' of Christmas and draining the power from Santa's sleigh in the process.
Directed by Jon Favreau and written by David Berenbaum, Elf is pretty standard stuff story-wise, and is hampered by a predictable sub-plot involving Walter's struggling publishing company and his dire need to lighten up. Yet there are many touching moments, particularly in the scenes involving Buddy and his young half-brother, and the former's awkward courting of a pretty toy store assistant (Zooey Deschanel) initially freaked out by his maniacal claims but who eventually succumbs to his hyperactive charms. It all inevitably leads to a climax built around a special-effect laden set-piece as Santa struggles to deliver the presents with a dying sleigh, but this is expected from a movie designed to win over those looking for something easy-going and festive. The world has grown cynical, and perhaps so have I, but Elf reminded me that it is no fun being so.
Way back in 2001, Ben Stiller's original Zoolander was little more than an extended Saturday Night Live sketch, stretched out for 90 minutes of hit-and-miss comedy. Despite the wafer-thin premise of lampooning the fashion industry and the shallow celebrities who inhabit it, there was a clumsy charm about it and much fun to be had with its loose, zany approach. 15 years on and Stiller delivers a sequel that nobody was really asking for, and the movie's awareness of the first's quotable, make-it-up-as-we-go-along dialogue and unapologetic daftness is ultimately its downfall. That, and being painfully unfunny.
The movie's opening sequence informs us that Derek Zoolander's Centre for Kids who Can't Read Good and Wanna Learn to do Other Stuff Good Too collapsed in a disaster after being built using the same materials used to build the small-scale model, killing his wife Matilda (Christine Taylor) and damaging the beautiful face of his old friend Hansel (Owen Wilson). His child is eventually taken away from him when his parental skills are called into question, so Zoolander retreats into the frozen wasteland of New Jersey and turns his back on the fashion industry. Hansel has also retired, choosing instead to spend his time in the deserts of Malibu with his orgy of 11 fellow sex fiends, all of whom he has impregnated (including Kiefer Sutherland).
When Billy Zane arrives with their Neflix orders, he persuades them to return to the catwalk for ultra-hip designer Don Atari (Kyle Mooney), an annoying yet on-the-nose hipster who hates stuff because he loves them and vice versa. This is not the only plot thread in this convoluted mess of a film, as the tale of Zoolander braving a return to the world he feels he no longer has a place in was the exact same plot as the first film. We also have new villain Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig), the return of Mugatu (Will Ferrell), Interpol agent Valentina Valencia (Penelope Cruz) who is tracking Zoolander and Hansel to help investigate the murders of music celebrities, some mythological nonsense about the Fountain of Youth, and the horrifying revelation that Zoolander's now-teenage son is, yes, fat and ugly.
It took four writers - Stiller, Justin Theroux, Nicholas Stoller and John Hamburg - to pen the movie and 15 years to think about it, and a tedious merry-go-round of re-hashed jokes, shoehorned celebrity cameos and eye-rolling innuendos ("Jack Ryan and Jack Reacher? Tonight is gonna be a total Jack-off!") is quite unbelievably the best they could come up with. By the time Mugatu arrives and the climax kicks into gear, you'll still be waiting for everything to somehow make sense. Up to this point, the most fun there is to be had is trying to spot all the famous faces (the funniest and most bizarre is a barely recognisable Benedict Cumberbarch) while Zoolander is left scratching his head trying to integrate into a world now so overcome by self-obsession. To make this point, we are made to suffer through endless social media gags that feel like the ramblings of a man trying desperately to fit in with the cool crowd. Even if you love the original, avoid at all costs.
For anyone who spent a lot of their childhood banging lumps of plastic together, creating outlandish plots and dialogue for them to act out, and pretending that all that lurked beyond the edges of the bed is a sea of molten lava, then you'll get The Lego Movie. It's hyperactive, fit-inducingly-colourful, and very, very funny, but it's the message behind the movie that makes it so wonderful. It tells a silly prophetic story about a simple construction worker thought to be 'the Special' - a plot deliberately made to sound like it's the product of an imaginative child - but his world of instructions manuals, mass consumerism, moronic pop songs and diabolical sitcoms is our world: the adult world. The Lego Movie makes you want to find your inner child again, and go back to those days where you could transport yourself to another world in your bedroom by using your own brain.
Emmet (Chris Pratt) is a naive and simple everyman, routinely watching popular sitcom "Where Are My Pants?", singing along to "Everything is Awesome!", and using an instruction manual for every aspect of his life. Left behind on a construction site one night, he comes across the mysterious Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), who seems to be searching for something. After accidentally spooking her, he investigates himself, and comes across the 'Piece of Resistance', a glowing object that gives him visions and knocks him unconscious when he touches it. When he awakens, he's being interrogated by Bad Cop (Liam Neeson), and finds the Piece has attached itself to his back. Believing him to be 'the Special' from a prophecy, Wyldstyle rescues Emmet and takes him to the Gandalf-alike Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), who teaches Emmet the way to becoming a master builder.
What could have been a mindless 90-minute advertisement for a global product, The Lego Movie dodges the bullet by actually attacking mass-consumerism, placing the importance on creativity and individuality. The big bad buy is Lord Business (Will Ferrell), a helmet-wearing, caped corporate devil who wishes to control everyone by gluing them in place with 'the Krakle' (a mispronunciation of Krazy Glue), oppressing the freedom to travel between Lego worlds (including The Old West, Middle-Zealand and Cloud Cuckoo Land). This is also a stab at collectors, those strange types who like to keep their toys in boxes and display them, rather than getting them out and using them for what they were designed for. Toys may have become ornaments, ways to make easy money on eBay.
It could be argued that such satire has no place in a kids movie. But these are the same kids who now have their own iPhones, bombarded with in-game advertisements and growing up in a world of reality TV, with programmes consistently celebrating wealth, stupidity and branding. Wyldstyle, concerned that Emmet may have never had an original thought in his entire life, asks him what his favourite restaurant is. "Any chain restaurant!" he gleefully replies. This is the man who is supposed to save the world, the greatest master builder to have ever lived, only to be a master builder, you need to have an imagination to create something amazing out of nothing. The best that Emmet has come up at this point is a two-level couch. It maybe useless, illogical and absolutely pointless, but it's something.
But The Lego Movie isn't all metaphors, it's also beautifully animated (it occasionally replicates stop-motion, as if the movie is actually made of Lego bricks, although it is entirely CGI), exceptionally witty, and features an outstanding vocal cast, who make up an entourage of Lego characters based on other mediums. We have Batman (Will Arnett) as Wyldstyle's arrogant yet loveable boyfriend, and the likes of Han Solo, C-3PO, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Gandalf, Dumbledore, Michelangelo the Renaissance artist and Michelangelo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. It's an absolute joy, as if looking into a child's toy box to find a bunch of random and unconnected figures from years of collecting. And that sums up the film - like looking into the past and realising that that same person, who could lose hours putting on silly voices and concocting ridiculous stories, is still in there somewhere.
Rehashing comedy formulas seems to be the go-to approach of recent years, especially for sleeper hits. One of the last decade's most successful comedies - both critically and commercially - The Hangover (2009), rode it's success to the tune of over $1.4 billion, managing to squeeze not one, but two sequels out of little more than re-telling the same jokes in slightly different ways. A whopping 9 years after Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), comes the long-awaited sequel. The budget has been upped, the running-time stretched, and the improvisation isn't nicely spattered throughout the film, but seems to define it. But director Adam McKay and actor Will Ferrell, who both co-wrote the film, seems to think it's army of dedicated fans want to see their favourite characters do the same thing all over again.
So, rather than Ron (Ferrell) having comical conversations with his pet dog Baxter, he rescues a shark he names Doby and cradles him like a baby. This time, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) wows his co-workers with his condom cabinet, rather than a collection of rare (and illegal) after shaves. There's another ridiculous flute performance, but this time on an ice rink in a scene that looks like it was left on the Blades of Glory (2007) cutting-room floor. And one of the most memorable moments from the first film - the cameo-filled news-anchor street fight - is done again, but the cameo's come from Oscar-winners, superstars, a manticore, and a douchebag pop star. Only everyone forgot to make it funny. I'm admittedly being harsh, as although Anchorman 2 is not a patch on its predecessor (which I find overrated anyway), it's still funnier than the vast majority of the pap that Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson churn out what seems like every month.
Years after the first film, Ron and Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), now his wife, are co-hosts at a successful New York news network. When their boss Mack Tannen (Harrison Ford) announces he is to retire, he promotes Veronica to fill his spot and fires Ron for his frequent on-air follies. Jealous of his wife, Ron forces Veronica to choose him or the job, to which she chooses the latter, leaving Ron to storm out on his son Walter (Judah Nelson), and take a job at Sea World. When he is fired for having a meltdown, and a failed suicide attempt, he is offered job at a new 24-hour news station by Freddie Shapp (Dylan Baker). After accepting, Ron rounds up his old team Champ Kind (David Koechner), Brian Fantana, and the presumed-dead Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), who turns up at his own funeral.
There's also a new romance that sees Brick Tamland thrown into the spotlight. While Carell is a very talented performer, the laughs he tries to squeeze out of his awkward scenes with love interest Chani (Kristen Wiig) seem desperate and forced, and these scenes frequently descend into unfunny anarchy or being weird for the sake of being weird. It is only in its final quarter when the film picks up on the laughs, making Ron blind and holed up in isolation. It's a bizarre tangent, even featuring a song about Doby the shark, but, alas, it works, and Ron even finds his humanity and bonds with his son, making it oddly sweet. This will not have the same success as the first film, which has since becomes a cult classic, and the fans certainly weren't appeased (the reviews on IMDb are outright angry), but it's simply not bad, and amusing enough throughout to warrant everyone at least giving it a fair shot.
Will Ferrell is a very funny man. He has the ability to squeeze comedy gold out of the raising of an eyebrow or a silly accent, and usually steals whatever film he appears in, regardless of how long he's in it for. Somehow, his movies tend to be bad, relying on juvenile behaviour and frat-house antics for laughs, which would be fine if any real thought was put into it. Anchorman is a sort of different, mixing childish humour with first-class improvisation from some of the most talented comedy performers working at the moment, and featuring one of Ferrell's most inspired creations. Based on real-life anchorman Harold Greene, who had a talent for sharp suits and a formidable 70's 'tache, Ron Burgundy is an egotistical, chauvinistic and narcissistic ass, but boy can he read the news.
In the male-dominated workspace of 70's 'action news', Burgundy and his troupe are the cream of the crop in San Diego. Burgundy delivers the news, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) is the lecherous field reporter, 'Champ' Kind (David Koechner) is the loud-mouthed sexist sports reporter, and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) is an innocent with an IQ of 48, delivering the weather and being led astray by the groups antics. Everything seems harmonious until the arrival of the beautiful and ambitious Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). Ron falls for her and she for him, until the word 'diversity' is introduced into the newsroom, and Ron finds himself with a new co-anchor.
Ron thinks that 'diversity' is an old wooden ship used in the Civil War era, a joke no doubt the product of multiple takes and the actors playing around with their lines. Due to this heavy reliance of improvisation, the film is scattershot and random, and by playing with the rules of random, as many jokes fall flat as they cause you to burst out in fits of laughter. So for every spontaneous accapella version of 'Afternoon Delight' or Burgundy wailing over the loss of his beloved dog Baxter, we have Koecher trying to squeeze laughs out of an unfunny character or an extended joke about Fanatana wearing Sex Panther, a rare and banned after shave which just happens to smell awful.
Anchorman's main success comes from, surprisingly, Christina Applegate. It was one of the first modern comedies to really put some thought into its female character, and rather than her playing the role of whiny other half trying to get her man to behave and grow up, she is vital in bringing to life this dark era of male-dominated office spaces, and she accepts Ron for the buffoon that he is. In the ten years since its release, it has garnered a huge cult following, and led to the release of it's sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues earlier this year. Though I don't share the hype surrounding this film, it's still a consistently funny oddity, and most probably Ferrell's best comedy work.
Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is a slow-witted fashion model who is known for his 'Blue Steel' look, and has dominated the industry for years. When the new kid on the block, Hansel (Owen Wilson), starts taking the attention away from Zoolander, and journalist Matilda (Stiller's wife Christine Taylor) writes a mocking piece on him, Zoolander considers retirement. He travels back home to work in the coal pits with his father (Jon Voight) and brothers (Vince Vaughn and Judah Friedlander) but they reject him due to his fashion antics and general uselessness in the pits. Meanwhile, fashion giant Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell) is coming up with a plan to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia, and feels that Zoolander is just stupid enough to be the hit-man.
I've never really been a fan of the work of Stiller and his usual troupe. While his films are generally entertaining, I just don't find them that funny. Zoolander, though not exactly a classic, is possibly his best, being frequently funny, silly, and most important of all, fun. For all it's prat-falls and ridiculous costumes, it is actually a pretty damn accurate send-up of the fashion industry. Many a time I've been forced to sit through the likes of America's Next Top Model andwhatever new shit Gok Wan has come up with (I detest that man with every fabric of my being), and it is really this ridiculous.
The cleverist moment of the film is when Mugatu announces his new fashion show, called Derelicte, spinning fashion out of the bums and hobo's that roam the streets. It's just the type of pretentious and shallow thing that happens in fashion all the time, taking its influences from the unfortunate and putting it's own naive and clueless fingers all over it. Anyway, that's enough about my hatred for the fashion industry, now for the actual film.
Zoolander has the thing that seems to missing from Stiller's usual films, which is sweetness. As gay as that sounds, it helps elevate the likes of Judd Apatow's films above others, and helps you actually care about the film rather than it being played just for laughs. Tropic Thunder (2008)and Dogeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)certainly tried, and ultimately failed. Although Zoolander is a shallow idiot, he is certainly loveable. And as Hansel, the always-watchable Owen Wilson is just a dim-witted. When the two settle their rivalry and team up, there is plenty of chemistry. Watching them both giggle like children when talking about bulimia is a scene where if handled badly, could have been uncomfortable, but the scene is possibly the funniest in the film.
Yes, it follows the same path as many other a comedy, and some of the jokes fail to hit the mark. But it's fun, entertaining, and features a handful of solid comedy performances. And, as ever, Will Ferrell steals the show as a manically over-the-top designer.
The NYPD prides itself on its two superstar cops, Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson) and Danson (Dwayne Johnson), who regularly cause millions of dollars worth of damages on the city streets while chasing down low-level criminals, but doing so in style. When their own arrogance and plain stupidity puts them out of action, partners Gamble (Ferrell) and Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg), one a goofy desk jockey and the other a neurotic short-fuse (I'm sure you can guess which is which) must step up to keep the city safe. While investigating a scaffolding permit violation by billionaire businessman Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan), the pair stumble upon a conspiracy involving mass fraud that goes all the way to the very top. They are met with resistance by a group of heavies led by Australian Roger Wesley (Ray Stevenson), and from their very own bosses and co-workers, but must get past their own personality clashes to bring the culprit to justice.
