Movie Review Horrible Bosses 2

Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) 

Directed by Sean Anders

Written by Sean Anders, John Morris 

Starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Chris Pine 

Release Date November 26th, 2014 

Published November 25th, 2014

Streaming on HBO Max 

“Horrible Bosses 2″ is a strange experience. While it was happening I laughed and it seemed to be working. I step away from it however,  and time is unkind. “Horrible Bosses 2″ unravels like a homemade Christmas sweater when placed under a critical eye.

Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day are back in the roles of Nick, Curt and Dale and out from under the yoke of their horrible bosses that they attempted to kill in the 2011 original. Striking out on their own they have an invention that they hope will make them their own Bosses. Unfortunately, though the product does attract financiers, our heroes’ business instincts leave them in the hole and forced once again to extreme measures.

2 time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz is the big bad Boss this time who quickly hoodwinks the trio out of their invention. Waltz’s Bert Hanson takes little time outwitting our heroes leading to the scheme that is the center point of the film: kidnapping Hanson’s son Rex (Chris Pine) in hopes to score enough ransom to save the company and the dream of not having a boss.

Starring Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Jamie Foxx, Chris Pine, Jennifer Aniston and Christoph Waltz

Energy is the main reason why “Horrible Bosses 2″ works in the moment but does not sustain itself in memory. The laughs that the film generates come from the immediate energy with which Bateman, Sudeikis, Day and Pine interact. Each segment of “Horrible Bosses 2″ plays out the same way: a scene begins with one character introducing a plot point and then the other actors riff on it until things get loud enough for Bateman to throw cold water on the whole thing as the straight man.

Scene after scene in “Horrible Bosses 2″ plays out in the exact same fashion and eventually the law of diminishing returns kicks in. As a change up, the third act turns nasty with an unexpected murder and the return to the plot of Jennifer Aniston’s sexpot and Jamie Foxx’s hustler each to lesser levels of excitement and humor.

I’m being hard on “Horrible Bosses 2″ and yet I really did laugh a lot during the movie. Bateman, Sudeikis and Day can’t help but be funny together and the obvious freedom they have to invent their dialogue allows them to bounce off each other in the colorful and familiar fashion of real friends.

Those interactions however, even as they are funny in the moment, don’t have a lasting quality. Nothing about “Horrible Bosses 2″ resonates long after you see it. The energy of the moment dissipates quickly after the movie ends and what remains is the vague memory of laughs and some of the nastier parts of the plot that failed to enhance the humor.

Movie Review Pacific Rim Uprising

Pacific Rim Uprising (2018) 

Directed by Steven S. DeKnight 

Written by Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, T.S Nowlin 

Starring Scott Eastwood, John Boyega, Cailee Spaeny, Charlie Day, Adria Arjona 

Release Date March 23rd, 2018 

Published March 27th, 2018 

Pacific Rim is from that part of Oscar winning director Guillermo Del Toro that we’ve all agreed to ignore, alongside the Hellboy movies and Mimic. It’s not that Pacific Rim is bad; rather that it is a tad undignified compared to the awards caliber work he gave us before moving to Hollywood and now his Oscar winning triumph, The Shape of Water. It will always be better to remember the visionary work of Pan’s Labyrinth and ignoring the time he played with his toys on a multi-multi-multi-million dollar budget.

Pacific Rim Uprising is, no surprise, not directed by Del Toro as he was distracted from his toys by a lovely love story that happened to be about a woman and fish Jesus. Del Toro has leant his name to the marketing of the Pacific Rim sequel as Executive Producer but it is television veteran Stephen S. DeKnight playing with Del Toro’s this time and having a great deal more fun than we are watching him play.

John Boyega is front and center as Jake, the star of Pacific Rim Uprising, taking the mantel from Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba whose characters have been killed off screen as we join the story. Elba’s Stacker Pentacost was Jake’s father and Jake was his constant failure. Jake was a washout from the Jaeger patrol, Jaeger’s are the giant robots humans pilot in the battle against Kaiju, giant monsters from another dimension.

Jake is brought back into the fold by his adopted sister Mako (Rinko Kikuchi, one of the few returning cas tmembers from the 2013 film) who wants him to train the next generation of Jaeger pilots alongside his former partner turned rival, Ranger Lambert (Scott Eastwood, trying hard to out-squint his legendary daddy). Among the new Jaeger pilot recruits is a young named Amara (Callee Spaeny), who built her very own Jaeger out of scrap.

Also back for the sequel is Charlie Day who was arguably the most entertaining aspect of the original Pacific Rim. Day is also the most entertaining part of Pacific Rim Uprising but not for the right reasons. Day’s arc in Pacific Rim Uprising is so ungodly silly it almost makes the movie a candidate for ‘So Bad It’s Good’ status. Unfortunately, most of Pacific Rim 2 is so clumsy and shambling that even ironic appreciation eludes the movie.

Director Stephen DeKnight, who, it should be noted, did remarkable work on TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff, Angel, fails to take control of Pacific Rim Uprising. Instead of establishing a tone that is funny and in tune with the silliness of the first film, Pacific Rim Uprising plays everything straight and the thin premise can’t bear the weight of the emotion Uprising wishes it were evoking in audiences.

Note to the makers of giant robot vs giant monster movies in the future: make it funny. We are never not going to laugh at this stuff so lean into the pitch and stop trying to make us take your story or characters seriously. Pacific Rim does try to packs in some jokes, mostly at the expense of Boyega’s Jake’s inflated ego, but the insistent action score and the self-serious performances of everyone else in Pacific Rim Uprising keeps everything flat and mirthless.

It seems impossible that one could watch a giant robot versus giant monster movie and not have fun but here we are with Pacific Rim Uprising. This sequel is at times genuinely unpleasant. The one big laugh the film gets is one that the makers likely did not intend and the fight scenes that were skillful and silly in the original are miserably clumsy exercises in sub-Transformers, derivative, CGI slop.

Movie Review Going the Distance

Going the Distance (2010) 

Directed by Nanette Burstein 

Written by Geoff La Tulippe 

Starring Justin Long, Drew Barrymore, Charlie Day, Christina Applegate, Jason Sudeikis

Release Date September 3rd, 2010 

Published September 2nd, 2010 

The trailers and commercials for “Going the Distance” do not promise much. It's fair to predict, upon seeing the film's cutesy promos, that you are getting a trite and predictable romantic comedy. The actual movie however, though it is a romantic comedy, is something more than a series of rom-com clichés. In Going the Distance, stars Drew Barrymore and Justin Long display stunning romantic chemistry that brings life to the story of two people attempting a long distance relationship. These two terrific actors, once a real life couple, have each other’s vibe down and they bring a real feeling and romantic vitality to the conversations that these two characters have.

Garrett (Justin Long) has just bombed badly on his girlfriend's birthday; he didn't get her a gift. Dumped because he thought she meant it when she said not to get her anything, Garrett finds himself downing beers with his pals Dan (Charlie Day, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Box (Jason Sudeikis) when he spots Erin (Barrymore), a hard drinking, foul mouthed, one of the boys who happens to be tragically pretty and utterly irresistible.

Unfortunately, Erin is not in New York for long, only six weeks before she has to move back to San Francisco to finish school. The two agree to keep things casual and spend the next 6 weeks attached at the lips. When the day comes for Erin to go home, Garrett pitches a long distance relationship and “Going the Distance” eases comfortably into the expectations of a romantic comedy but with just enough surprises to keep things lively and fun.

Nanette Burstein is best known for the unconventional documentary “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” based on the life of Hollywood legend Robert Evans. In that film Burstein steered around the limitations of typical documentary filmmaking by toying with the form and allowing the pompous yet fascinating Evans narrate his own life as if he were sitting on the couch next to you recounting his life story while images flashed all around as if in 3D broadcast from his mind.

Experimenting with the form of a romantic comedy seems, to me, to be an even greater challenge but one that Ms. Burstein was up for and though “Going the Distance” is no radical rejiggering of the form, her more modest innovations liven things up. For instance, when Garrett and Erin go on their first date Burstein switches from conventional film stock to handheld digital. The movie is briefly wrenching but it does increase the intimacy of this romantic moment by taking advantage of natural light and seemingly un-choreographed street scenery. She sticks with the device for the following few scenes, a montage of the six weeks of getting to know you time and that works as well.

The other innovation is the use of four letter words. Yes, we have heard cursing in movies to the point of being completely jaded but there is something in the way Drew Barrymore says the F-word, something so delightfully naughty and unexpected that it plays kind of sexy in a strange way. Co-star Jason Sudeikis also makes clever and unexpected use of obscenity that, because of years of SNL censoring, has a jarring yet hilarious effect. Sudeikis has never seemed more natural and appealing on screen as he does in “Going the Distance” describing the challenge of a long distance relationship and dreaming up what Erin might be doing in California in filthy/funny detail.

Finally and even rarer still, the trailer material for “Going the Distance” has the rare quality of being the least interesting and least funny bits from the film. So often we have complained about movies using the best gags for the trailers and commercials but in “Going the Distance” the weakest and most conventional gags are used in the promos while the best stuff is in the movie. A surprisingly R-rated and unconventional romantic comedy, “Going the Distance” thrives on the exceptional chemistry of Drew Barrymore and Justin Long and the daring if not boundary breaking direction of Nanette Burstein. 

Going the Distance is a wonderful and welcome surprise.