Movie Review Mission Impossible Fallout

Mission Impossible Fallout (2018) 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Written by Christopher McQuarrie 

Staring Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Michelle Monaghan 

Release Date July 27th, 2018 

Published July 25th, 2018 

The Mission Impossible series has been a rollercoaster of quality since its inception 22 years ago. The first film wasn’t great but it did begin the slow, upward crawl of the series. Then, the series picked up speed by embracing the slick, shallow style of director John Woo for Mission Impossible 2. Finally, in Mission Impossible 3, the series peaked with the J.J Abrams directed thriller that was brimming with suspense and bursting with action while telling the best story the series has told thus far.

It was back down the quality coaster after that with Ghost Protocol but Rogue Nation began the climb back upwards and now Mission Impossible Fallout has arrived to provide another, somewhat smaller peak for the franchise. Filled with smart twists and turns and a strong payoff, Mission Impossible Fallout is perhaps the best blend yet of Fast and Furious style goofy fun with the stylish grit of the Bourne franchise, the true sweet spot of the Mission Impossible franchise.

Mission Impossible Fallout finds Ethan Hunt on the trail of nuclear warheads that are on the black market. The spy ring known as The Syndicate, is without its leader, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), whom Ethan and his team captured in Rogue Nation, and they’ve been making up for his absence with even more terror attacks around the globe. The nukes however, are their final big play and Ethan needs to get to them before The Syndicate does.

Unfortunately, after missing out on the nukes in Berlin, Ethan is forced to take along a C.I.A Agent to watch over him and his team. Agent Walker (Henry Cavill) is a hard-headed, cold-hearted, efficient spy who specializes in killing whoever needs to be killed to accomplish his mission. Naturally, Walker’s approach clashes with Ethan’s more nuanced take on spycraft, the kind that doesn’t get a whole lot of other people killed.

Fallout brings the return of Rebecca Ferguson in the role of Ilsa Faust. When last we saw Ilsa she was getting out of the spy business, leaving behind her career at London’s MI6. Sadly, the spy game is not so easy to walk away from. This time, Ilsa’s aims are in direct conflict with Ethan’s and the two will come close to killing each other on more than one occasion during Mission Impossible Fallout.

Fallout was written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the screenwriter who tried to save Ghost Protocol with some script doctoring before taking the full reins of the series for Rogue Nation.

McQuarrie may be just the right creative force for the series. His style combines the slick and stylish visuals that are a hallmark of the series but he’s also not blind to the details of good storytelling and doesn’t let the stunts get in the way of telling a good story. Stunts are, of course, the bread and butter of the Mission Impossible franchise but, throughout the series, the necessity of Tom Cruise to put his life on the line for some adrenaline rush and a good public relations have come at the expense of the story. Ghost Protocol for instance had a pair of big action set pieces set in stone before the film even had a script. The writers had to write the stunt rather than coming up with stunts to go with the story.

Any screenwriter would likely admit that having to write to the action rather than forming an organic storyline is less than an ideal way to write a script. That problem plagued Ghost Protocol and to a lesser extent, Rogue Nation where McQuarrie merely had to write in Cruise hanging from the side of a plane as it took off. Fallout has some big action but none of it feels sewn on to the story, it all feels as if it proceeds from the story.

Perhaps the biggest stunt in the movie, if not the most talked about, is a helicopter battle where Cruise has to nearly fall off of the helicopter and save himself by the skin of his teeth. It’s a spectacular sequence and part of a kinetic closing act that is intense and rarely lets up on the excitement and suspense all the way to the end. The most talked about stunt in Fallout is a foot chase in which Cruise parkours his way across London rooftops in pursuit of the enemy.

Cruise was injured in the chase, breaking his ankle attempting to jump from one building to the next in a gnarly jump that rumor has it, is in the final cut of Fallout, though the scene proceeds at a pace where you may not notice it. Cruise’s injury shutdown production for eight weeks and ballooned the film’s budget to reportedly more than $250 million dollars. It probably was not worth it for this particular stunt but studios aren’t inclined to tell a star like Cruise not to do his own stunts.

Mission Impossible Fallout has the best traits of the lesser parts of the Mission Impossible franchise. Slick, stylish and occasionally shallow, the film could have been just another stunt-fest. Thankfully, the story picks up with a couple of great twists, especially a rare call back to the first film in the franchise, and by the end the story and the pace are feeding each other and the thrills coming at you at a frenetic pace.

I really enjoyed how Fallout combines the goofy thrills of a Fast and Furious movie with the gritty seriousness of the Bourne franchise. That’s right where this franchise should be, serious but not too serious, outlandish but not over the top. The first Mission Impossible showed what would happen if you took this material too seriously, the second film showed what happened if you didn’t take things seriously enough. MI3 nailed the formula with great story and great action and Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation and now Fallout have tried with varying success to match what Abrams did in MI3 to little avail.

Fallout is the closest the series has come to its creative peak and for that it is definitely worth checking out in theaters this weekend.

Movie Review Mission Impossible 2

Mission Impossible 2 (2000) 

Directed by John Woo

Written by Robert Towne

Starring Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames

Release Date May 24th, 2000 

Published May 20th, 2020 

The second installment of the Mission Impossible franchise is really where the series found its feet. After the first film, though financially successful, failed by forcing director Brian DePalma to make a standard, mainstream action movie, the makers of MI2 picked the right director to deliver a slick, stylish, fast paced action movie that didn’t have to do anything other than just be cool looking to succeed.

Director John Woo, the inventor of the cool style of action adventure cinema, was the perfect choice to direct Mission Impossible 2. Woo favors visual dynamism over story and that style over substance approach works for the mindless sort of fun that was missing from the first film which ached to be both taken seriously as a movie and be enjoyed as an action adventure movie, and nearly failed on both accounts.

We picked up the action of Mission Impossible 2 by introducing our ‘MacGuffin.’ For those that aren’t aware of classic movie tropes, the macguffin is a term coined by the legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock to describe a plot device that all the characters in the movie are seeking. It can be any kind of nebulous concept as long as everyone is chasing it, that’s what propels the story along. The Maltese Falcon is arguably the most famous example of a MacGuffin, a thing everyone in the movie wanted for whatever reason the plot decided.

The Macguffin in MI2 is a virus and a cure known as Chimera and Bellerophon. A doctor friend of our hero, IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has created both the worst virus in history and its cure and is attempting to escape with them both as the movie opens. Unfortunately, the doctor falls into the hands of a turncoat IMF Agent, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), impersonating Ethan. Ambrose murders the doctor and absconds with the MacGuffin and the chase is on.

To find Ambrose, Ethan must enlist Ambrose’s former flame, a thief named Nyah (Thandie Newton). It will be her job to get back into Ambrose’s life and get Ethan and his team, including his old buddy Luther (Ving Rhames) and a newcomer Aussie pilot named Billy (Jon Polson), close enough to retrieve the virus and cure before Ambrose can sell them to the highest bidder or unleash them on the world out of spite for the IMF.

The plot of Mission Impossible 2 isn’t important, we’re here for the cinema of cool, the cinema of John Woo and the style over substance master does not disappoint. Slow-motion cameras capture spectacular chases and stylish cinematography brings out the sexy fight over the affections of Newton’s Nyah between Ethan and Ambrose. Sure, saving the world and all is important or whatever, but looking good is the point of MI2 and everyone and everything looks incredible.

Every Mission Impossible is known for the stunt that nearly got Tom Cruise crippled or killed and MI2 is no different. Our first glimpse of Ethan Hunt in MI2 is him free-climbing a craggy rock in the middle of the Utah desert with no one around for miles. Naturally, Cruise insisted on doing the stunt himself and watching him narrowly cling to the side of a nearly flat cliff face is honestly still as breathtaking today as it was in 2000 when the film was released.

Screenwriter Robert Towne, back from having over-written the first Mission Impossible film crafted the screenplay with a much leaner and clearer narrative. Towne claims that he had to fit a pair of stunts into the movie even before the plot of the film had been devised and had to write the scenes into the movie as he created the screenplay. This, naturally, includes Ethan’s introductory scene and a scene near the end involving a motorcycle fight.

The motorcycle ballet at the end of Mission Impossible 2 is wildly silly and implausible but wonderfully so. Director Woo delivers the scene in his classic, slick-slo-mo style and it works for the slick, empty spectacle of MI2. Also great is the closing fight scene between Cruise and Scott where Cruise’s lithe physicality is framed beautifully within Woo’s perfectly seamless and crisp scene-setting that, of course, includes his trademark fight-scene doves.

Tom Cruise appears a great deal more comfortable in this empty-headed sequel. The first film featured him being cocky yet calculated and when you could see Ethan’s wheels turning it often slowed the film to a halt with overwrought flashbacks and other such nonsense. Thankfully, MI2 does not burden the actor or character with too much to think about and just gets on with the business at hand, super cool fight and chase scenes.

Mission Impossible 2 is as shallow as a drying puddle but it looks and feels spectacular. It’s like a great looking car that gets no gas mileage, completely impractical for use, but it looks amazing. Every frame of Mission Impossible 2 is a gorgeous fantasy of the action spy genre. The awesome locations, the world travelogue cinematography and the spectacular action makes the movie insanely watchable if not all that rewarding for your attention-span.

Movie Review Mission Impossible

Mission Impossible (1996) 

Directed by Brian De Palma 

Written by David Koepp, Robert Towne

Starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emilio Estevez, Emmanuelle Beart, Kristen Scott Thomas

Release Date May 22nd, 1996

Published May 20th, 2016 

Mission Impossible doesn’t really hold up. I hate to say it because I really enjoy most of the franchise but the 1996 movie doesn’t hold up 22 years later. Watching Mission Impossible with modern eyes, the flaws stand out from Cruise’s desperate performance, Jon Voight’s lazy performance and the underwritten female characters stand apart from the lesser good things about the movie.

Ethan Hunt is an agent of the Impossible Mission Force, a branch of the CIA that specializes in the kind of espionage of the most impossible nature. Hunt works under veteran agent Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) alongside a team that includes Jack (Emilio Estevez), Sarah (Kristen Scott Thomas), and Claire (Emmanuelle Beart). Claire is Jim’s wife though quickly sees that she and Ethan appear to have eyes for each other.

A digression, the chemistry between Cruise and Beart has heat from time to time but the great disappointment of the movie is how little is done to exploit that chemistry. Brian DePalma is one of the great sleaze directors of all time and for him to allow the Ethan-Claire relationship to be so innocent to the point of being cookie-cutter, ala dozens of similar movie relationships, indicates how little this is really a Brian DePalma movie.

On a mission in Prague attempting to prevent a Russian spy from stealing a list of the real identities of IMF agents worldwide, everyone on Hunt’s team is murdered and he is framed for their deaths. On the run, Ethan is surprised and notably suspicious, to find Claire had survived despite having been in a car that later exploded. Nevertheless, he trusts her to be part of his mission to find the person who framed him. 

Mission Impossible was directed by Brian DePalma who appears to have been hired for his name value and not his style. Mission Impossible contains almost none of the classic DePalma style of sexy, weird, chaos. Sure, some of DePalma’s output is deeply problematic through the lens of history but you can’t argue that he was boring except when he directed Mission Impossible.

Compared to movies like Snake Eyes or Carrie, the action tropes of Mission Impossible are dull.

It’s hard not to assume that Mission Impossible is boring because of Tom Cruise. I say this as a fan of Tom Cruise. I am genuinely someone who believes Cruise is a fine actor. However, the deep, almost fetishistic control Cruise has over his onscreen persona can keep him from being fun. The actor assiduously avoids anything controversial, he plays it safe especially here in the wake of his first real failure, his much mocked performance in Interview with the Vampire.

Mission Impossible is such a rigidly paced action movie that even that classic Tom Cruise twinkle in the eye and million dollar smile are toned down and held back in favor of a stoic, dare I say, charisma dimmed performance. I get that Ethan Hunt is supposed to be a rigid, book hero but we go to the movies to see stars and big personalities and while his willingness to let the action do the talking is nice, I’d rather he have some personality while he’s action-ing.

It’s especially egregious because I expect so much more from both Cruise and Brian DePalma. DePalma has an eye for idiosyncrasy and had he been allowed to find the idiosyncrasies of Ethan Hunt and exploit them and had there been anything even remotely controversial about the character, perhaps the movie would hold up over time. Instead, looking back at the original, it’s a wonder this franchise is still around.

Thankfully, the franchise picks up the personality in the other movies, especially when they allow John Woo to make the film franchise his own. Here however, Brian DePalma is wasted and the film is shocking by the numbers. Cruise is sweaty and desperate throughout, rarely allowing Ethan to have a personality beyond his remarkable competence and impressive physicality. Kristen Scott Thomas and Emilio Estevez are killed off and Emmanuelle Beart is left with far too much of the dramatic heavy lifting.

The one thing that stands out as genuinely inspired in Mission Impossible ‘96 is the casting of Vanessa Redgrave as the big bad. The veteran actress is the one person in the film who is genuinely having fun. Redgrave sinks her teeth into the role and in her brief screen time the film is as fun as she is. The rest of the movie however, is just dour. Jon Voight especially is miscast as Jim Phelps.

Oddly the only even remotely controversial thing about Mission Impossible, and mind you I am not asking for the film to be outre in a violent or transgressive way, just have some personality. The only controversy the film courted was in the portrayal of Jim Phelps. Phelps was one of the main characters of the beloved TV series Mission Impossible and the twists and turns of his plot angered fans who held a love for Peter Graves’ stoic, reliable performance.

Even the famed train sequence that closes Mission Impossible appears less impressive though the frame of history. In wrestling terms, Mission Impossible is what is called a Spot Fest, a match centered on the biggest moves the competitors are capable of. The series focuses heavily on topping one big action spot after another and what’s happened in the more modern sequels has rendered the helicopter spot from the original film not unlike the Hulk Hogan leg-drop, a move that was once iconic and now seems rather silly next to a 5 Star Frog Splash.

If only Mission Impossible had half the personality of a wrestling match, perhaps it wouldn’t be so unremarkable.

Movie Review Never Back Down

Never Back Down (2008) 

Directed by Jeff Wadlow 

Written by Chris Hauty 

Starring Sean Faris, Cam Gigandet, Evan Peters, Djimon Hounsou 

Release Date March 14th, 2008

Published March 15th, 2008 

It is fair to wonder, as we watch the stream of PG-13 garbage like Never Back Down roll out, could someone like Ralph Macchio even have a chance of being a lead actor today? Looking over the last five years worth of movies even remotely similar to Macchio's teen fluff of the 80's you find nothing but buffed up, gap models.

Moreover, rarely do you see someone who might be, to adopt the vernacular of the casually racist, too ethnic. Ralph Macchio, with that hint of olive in his skin and slight northeast accent, would likely be left to fend for a best friend role. Daniel son in the 2008 version would likely be played by Sean Faris.

Jake Tyler (Sean Faris) was a hotshot football star at his little high school in Iowa. Now however, as his mother moves him and his little sister to Tampa Florida, he is ready to leave football behind and settle into high school anonymity. His hopes of becoming a wallflower disappear however when he falls for a hottie named Baja (Amber Heard) who happens to be the girlfriend of the school bully.

He is Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet) and he runs the school by beating the crap out of people. He holds underground mixed martial arts contests and is the undisputed king of the school. For Jake to win Baja's heart and change the landscape of the school he must train and become the new, benevolent, king of the school. To do that he seeks out the help of an ex-MMA champ turned gym owner (Djimon Hounsou) who trains him and becomes something of a father figure.

I'm sure many critics made the connection between Never Back Down and The Karate Kid but it bears repeating. That film starred Ralph Macchio as the picture of innocence, a sweet youngster who, through the teachings of Mr. Miyagi, finds confidence and inner strength through beating people up. Never Back Down is the exact same formula, right down to stealing the bad guy's girl, but with better looking actors and the fad of mixed martial arts.

Djimon Hounsou is a much more female friendly version of Mr. Myagi with his chiseled physique and exotic accent. And Amber Head's lolita like Baja, dressed only in short skirts and tight bikinis, a stark contrast to Elizabeth Shue's charming innocence and love of fluffy sweaters tied at the shoulder. Finally, there is star Sean Faris who plays the Daniel character only with more muscles and less.... Ethnicity.

Mixed Martial Arts is having its moment in the cultural spotlight and seems likely to carve out a small place for itself. In that sense, Never Back Down is certainly timely if not in any way original. Of course, MMA is merely a cultural touchstone for Never Back Down not really a milieu. The fights are cut quickly to avoid any actual contact that might mess up the GQ ready faces of the stars.

Think I'm exaggerating? Check out one of the fight scenes in Never Back Down and the scene that follows. After repeatedly pounding one another, fighters arrive at school the next day with a bandaid over an eye minus any visible bruise, cuts or contusions. While you're at it, find yourself a real MMA fighter, you aren't likely to find one who looks much like Sean Faris or Cam Gigandot.

To ask for realism from any movie, let alone a lame little teen movie is admittedly, ludicrous. But equally as ludicrous is a fight movie starring guys who look as if they have never been in a fight before. Say what you will about the waifish innocence of Ralph Macchio, each time he fought in The Karate Kid he came out looking like he had been in a fight.

Karate Kid was a modest pop melodrama but everything about it is superior to Never Back Down. In fact Karate Kid puts the lie to Never Back Down in every way imaginable. Where one has characters we believe and come to care about, the other has cardboard cutouts borrowed from body spray commercials. 

Movie Review Obsessed

Obsessed (2009) 

Directed by Steve Shill

Written by David Loughery 

Starring Beyonce, Idris Elba, Ali Larter, Bruce McGill, Jerry O'Connell 

Release Date April 23rd, 2009 

Published April 22nd, 2009 

The thriller Obsessed wants to be, needs to be a trashtastic spectacle. Instead what we get is a timid, messy, goofball effort that fails to deliver on the promise of its guilty pleasure premise. The commercials sold Beyonce vs that chick from Heroes that isn't Hayden Pannetiere. We want the catfight, we get a minor kitten tangle.

Idris Elba, who may be best known for his work on HBO's little seen but much loved drama The Wire, stars in Obsessed as Derek, a happily married executive trying to put his womanizing ways in the past. You see, his wife Sharon (Beyonce Knowles) was his assistant when they met. Now, as a married man he has a rule: No female assistants.

That rule however, has to be waived when Derek is stuck with a comely temp named Lisa. They met and  briefly, modestly flirted before Derek knew she was going to temp for him. Derek didn't think much of the flirtation but Lisa is consumed with it. It's not long before she is making excuses to get him alone and eventually making a serious play on him at the office Christmas party.

Derek turns her down at every turn but unfortunately, he kept the whole thing from his wife. When Lisa makes a dramatic move that gets the cops involved Sharon finds out and Derek's picturesque life is in shambles. Meanwhile, looming from the movie's marketing campaign is that Sharon-Lisa confrontation that is the film's selling point.

Directed by television veteran Stephen Shill, Obsessed is a surprisingly dull slog for what should be a trashy little B-movie filled with cheap thrills. It's as if Shill and company were reluctant to accept their place in the movie world. It's not that they really aspire beyond cheap thrillers but rather that they lack the commitment to be as cheap and nasty as a movie like this needs to be to be successful.

Obsessed wants desperately to match the zeitgeist capturing heights of the similarly themed 80's classic Fatal Attraction. However, it lacks the raw, visceral sexuality of that film, not to mention the utterly fearless performance of Glenn Close. Ali Larter is certainly no Glenn Close. Though quite a beauty, Larter can't Close's commitment and strange, frightening charisma.

As for pop star Beyonce, her limitations as an actress continue to show. Her face, though lovely, is a blank slate in even the most stressful of scenes. Her soundtrack contributions are filled with passion but her acting leaves a great deal to be desired. In the head to head fight with Larter we get some hair pulling and an obvious, predictable end so badly shaded in the opening scenes that you might laugh if you haven't checked out already. Dull, dimwitted and inept, Obsessed fails at the minimal goal of being a cheap thrill.

Movie Review Paddington

Paddington (2014)

Directed by Paul King

Written by Paul King 

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi

Release Date November 24th, 2014

Published November 23rd, 2014 

The trailer for “Paddington” is among the worst I have seen in some time. Based on the trailer one would not be incorrect in the assumption that “Paddington” will be another in a series of insulting takes on beloved children’s properties such as “The Chipmunks,” or “The Smurfs.” The trailer features gross out humor, bad slapstick and, worst of all, not one, single, solitary laugh.

That was just the first trailer. The second trailer only seemed to pile the dirt higher on the film’s grave. The follow up trailer introduced Nicole Kidman as the film’s villain, a taxidermist determined to make Paddington the next prize in her museum collection. Ms. Kidman’s career has been on a steady decline for some time now and her status, plus the general awfulness of both trailers seemed to signal doom for “Paddington.”

So, imagine my surprise when upon seeing “Paddington” I did not find a steaming pile of Smurf like offal. Imagine, in fact, expectations so lowered by awful marketing that I found myself delighted by “Paddington.”  Yes, the lowered expectations helped, but truly “Paddington” is really quite unexpectedly good.

“Paddington” features the voice of Ben Whishaw as the titular bear, a rare breed from deepest, darkest Peru who learned to talk from his grandparents who were visited by an Englishman in some timeless realm. The Englishman invited the bears to come visit him in England any time and when poachers begin poking around the forest, Paddington is sent off to England for safe keeping.

During World War II as London was besieged by German bombers, children were evacuated from the city. Some of the children were orphaned by the bombings and to give them a new life in a new town they were often given only a cardboard sign around their neck asking that someone please take care of them. Knowing this story, Paddington is given a similar sign upon his arrival in London.

Found by the Brown family, including mother Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), father Henry Brown (Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville) and their two children, Judy (Madeline Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), Paddington quickly finds a new home while also beginning his search for the Englishman who once invited his family to England.

A rather convoluted backstory introduces Nicole Kidman as Millicent, the film’s villainous Taxidermist. That the role is not a complete embarrassment to the one time box office star and Academy Award Winner is something of a triumph. You can sense from the beginning that this is a movie Kidman made so her children could see her and yet the compromise somehow doesn’t harm the performance. Kidman hams it up to surprisingly good effect in “Paddington.”

First time feature director Paul King makes “Paddington” work by creating a very simple, pleasant tone. The film is gentle and sweet and, aside from the abysmal bathroom sequence seen in the trailer, avoids being simpleminded and pandering. Smartly no effort is made to make Paddington hip or modern, the film exists in a time warp, it’s very own universe with familiar rules, save for the fact that bears can talk.

Aside from the bathroom scene from the trailer, the fact that no one in England finds a talking bear odd is the film’s biggest flaw. I hate it when a movie makes the fantastic seem common place. Aliens, superheroes, and talking bears are something to marvel at if they’ve never been seen before. Avoiding how unusual a talking bear is plays like a joke that only the filmmakers found funny.

I generally don’t care for movies that are described as ‘Gentle’ or ‘Pleasant’ but I didn’t mind it so much in “Paddington.” Something about the plushy “Paddington” invites ‘Gentle’ and welcomes ‘Pleasant.’ Had the marketing campaign played up the gentle and pleasant aspects of “Paddington” rather than the one, outlying scene of misguided antics, I might have even more appreciation for “Paddington.”

Movie Review Miss March

Miss March (2009) 

Directed by Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger

Written by Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger 

Starring Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger, Craig Robinson 

Release Date March 13th, 2009 

Published March 13th, 2009 

The guys behind IFC's The Whitest Kids You Know are a relatively funny troupe in the sketch comedy setting. Given a large scale film production and asked to deliver a cohesive coherent feature film, that funny becomes truly something relative.

Miss March stars Zach Cregger as Eugene, a High Schooler who advocates for abstinence. With his girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi) he delivers disturbing talks to small children about sexually transmitted diseases. Eugene had hoped that he and Cindi could wait till they were married before they fell into bed but with prom approaching, Cindi wants to have sex.

Eugene eventually agrees but on the night in question, at a post-prom party, he is absolutely terrified. With Cindi waiting in a bedroom upstairs, Eugene attempts some liquid courage with the help of his long time horndog pal Tucker (Trevor Moore). In fact, Eugene imbibes so much liquid courage that he ends up dropping himself down some stairs and into a coma.

4 years later Eugene wakes up with a bat to the face. It's Tucker who had to try something to wake his best friend. This, especially important because Eugene's gal Cindi is all grown up and posing in Playboy. With this knowledge, Tucker busts Eugene out of the hospital and heads for the Playboy mansion.

Tucker also has an ulterior motive. A fight with his girlfriend Candace (Molly Stanton) has him the target of her angry brother and his brotherhood of crazy firefighters who end up chasing Tucker and Eugene all the way across the country. Also joining the chase is Tucker's pal, a rapper played by The Office star Craig Robinson.

Robinson's rapper has a name that is, I am quite sure, meant to be hilariously funny. I won't repeat it here. I will say that I don't get it. There are non-sequiturs and then there is outright absurdity, I am not sure where this rapper's name falls on that bizarre continuum.

Bizarre is a good way of describing Miss March. It has a plot with a simple propellant. A guy wakes from a 4 year coma to find his girl has posed for Playboy. Simple, straightforward, not unlike the J. Geils classic Centerfold, aside from the coma part.

What writer-directors Cregger and Moore do with this premise is overload it with lowbrow humor and non-starter absurdity that never seems to land within miles of a punchline. Did I laugh? Yes. Trevor Moore has one of those rubbery faces and odd vocal manners that make for easy laughs. Unfortunately, the laughs are too few and far between.

One funny sequence in the movie that I can recall has Cregger repeatedly slapped by a playboy security guard. The guard is played by Davon McDonald who excels in small roles such as this. He was lovable as Dwayne the bartender in Forgetting Sarah Marshall last year. His repeated reasoning for slapping Eugene is the one moment where Miss March earns a few significant laughs.

But, as I said, the laughs here are too few and far between. Miss March is basically a dull witted sex romp/road movie with little invention beyond the simple premise and its series of unfunny body function jokes. It's not terribly offensive really, more of a forgettable waste of time.