Mary, Max, Ace, and 10 Things I Hate
So it's December 2nd, 2009, and today's old reviews include a request/dedication of sorts, based on a conversation I had with one of my lovely new LJ friends the other day involving a particular flick that I just happened to have written an older review of. heartbreakbabe , this one's for you.
Max Payne
2 stars
Okay. So Mark Wahlberg is generally very cool, the long-absent Chris O'Donnell resurfaces, there are some nifty special effects, and both Mila Kunis and Olga Kurylenko are ridiculously gorgeous. That's...about it for the good qualities of this movie. I've never played the video game, but I bet whoever created it is not happy with himself for selling the movie rights. The story was ridiculous, the acting and script were sub-optimal in the extreme, the action was not particularly impressive. Moreover, the "fantasy" element, so specifically mentioned on the movie box and showcased in the preview, turned out to be nothing more than a series of drug-fueled hallucinations with a very (VERY) small side order of Norse mythology, apparently thrown in (lamely, a la Scorpion King 2) to bolster the already weak story with something theoretically approaching legitimacy. Memo to director John Moore: it didn't work. In fact, the whole movie didn't really work, which is quite sad considering its talented cast.
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10 Things I Hate About You
4 stars
In a world populated more and more by insipid teen comedies fueled by sight gags and T&A, 10 Things...stands as one of the few that did well by going the other way: it was clever (and hilarious!) without resorting to crudity. Based on a Shakespeare play (The Taming of the Shrew, if you didn't know), it did one of the best modernizing jobs I've seen, and it used some of the same kinds of wordplay that the Bard himself was famous for using. More than that, it came to life in a way most movies only dream of doing. Its unrealistic elements didn't feel unrealistic. Its romantic characters (okay, maybe not Larisa Oleynik, but the others) somehow managed both to be real people and the exact kinds of boyfriends or girlfriends we, the viewers, would want. Even the parts that were over-the-top farfetched were forgivable. This movie made its viewers feel like they were part of something cool, probably even gave some the high school experience they always wanted but never had. AND, if all that weren't enough, it could be a chick flick without feeling like one. I personally don't count it as one, though I could see some people arguing the point. Anyway, If you watch one high school movie a year and you haven't seen this one yet, definitely make it next year's choice.
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Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
3 stars
Ah, the glory days of Jim Carrey, when we could laugh at his antics and one-liners without feeling like we had heard it all before or wondering if he and his director and screenwriters got something that we all didn't. After Liar Liar, I'd call this probably his best work. Maybe that says something sad about both him and moviegoers' tastes, but it doesn't hurt my enjoyment of the movie.
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There's Something About Mary
3.5 stars
Another movie that was basically the first of its kind: the first big "push the envelope" movie, trying to see how crude, humiliating, ridiculous and gross it could be and still attract enough people to be a financial success. Well...okay, it wasn't the first, not by a long shot. But to me, it felt like the first, because it was the first of its ilk that I ever saw, and thus I had a hell of a time laughing hysterically while clapping my hands over my mouth and going "I can't believe they just showed that!" every three to five minutes along with the 200 other high schoolers in the theatre. And while Hollywood's quest for more and more shocking gags has continued since TSAM, few films postdating it have managed to strike as close a balance between being crass and somehow being classy. I think part of that has to do with what a classy actress Cameron Diaz is; nowadays, you wouldn't catch an actress of her caliber dead in a teen shock film. And I think that part of it had to do with the fact that while there were many jokes and gags played on Ben Stiller's character for the sake of his nerdiness, the jokes played at the expense of love were relatively few, so the romantic element of the movie did not feel like either an afterthought or a mockery.
Anyway, I was in high school when this movie came out, and I loved it then for what it said about the future: that movies were going to push the envelop more and I would be old enough to watch them! Now, out of college, I love it for what it says about the past: that there was a time before Jackass, before Meet the Parents, before Anger Management and before most reality TV, when the envelope-pushing still retained a bit of class, a smattering of restraint, and a small amount of taste (at least by comparison).
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And that, folks, pretty much marks the end of many of my shorter old reviews. From here on in, they get long, so in the words of Taxi Ride, everybody "get set." It's going to be awesome, if I do say so myself.
FBS
Max Payne
2 stars
Okay. So Mark Wahlberg is generally very cool, the long-absent Chris O'Donnell resurfaces, there are some nifty special effects, and both Mila Kunis and Olga Kurylenko are ridiculously gorgeous. That's...about it for the good qualities of this movie. I've never played the video game, but I bet whoever created it is not happy with himself for selling the movie rights. The story was ridiculous, the acting and script were sub-optimal in the extreme, the action was not particularly impressive. Moreover, the "fantasy" element, so specifically mentioned on the movie box and showcased in the preview, turned out to be nothing more than a series of drug-fueled hallucinations with a very (VERY) small side order of Norse mythology, apparently thrown in (lamely, a la Scorpion King 2) to bolster the already weak story with something theoretically approaching legitimacy. Memo to director John Moore: it didn't work. In fact, the whole movie didn't really work, which is quite sad considering its talented cast.
---
10 Things I Hate About You
4 stars
In a world populated more and more by insipid teen comedies fueled by sight gags and T&A, 10 Things...stands as one of the few that did well by going the other way: it was clever (and hilarious!) without resorting to crudity. Based on a Shakespeare play (The Taming of the Shrew, if you didn't know), it did one of the best modernizing jobs I've seen, and it used some of the same kinds of wordplay that the Bard himself was famous for using. More than that, it came to life in a way most movies only dream of doing. Its unrealistic elements didn't feel unrealistic. Its romantic characters (okay, maybe not Larisa Oleynik, but the others) somehow managed both to be real people and the exact kinds of boyfriends or girlfriends we, the viewers, would want. Even the parts that were over-the-top farfetched were forgivable. This movie made its viewers feel like they were part of something cool, probably even gave some the high school experience they always wanted but never had. AND, if all that weren't enough, it could be a chick flick without feeling like one. I personally don't count it as one, though I could see some people arguing the point. Anyway, If you watch one high school movie a year and you haven't seen this one yet, definitely make it next year's choice.
---
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
3 stars
Ah, the glory days of Jim Carrey, when we could laugh at his antics and one-liners without feeling like we had heard it all before or wondering if he and his director and screenwriters got something that we all didn't. After Liar Liar, I'd call this probably his best work. Maybe that says something sad about both him and moviegoers' tastes, but it doesn't hurt my enjoyment of the movie.
---
There's Something About Mary
3.5 stars
Another movie that was basically the first of its kind: the first big "push the envelope" movie, trying to see how crude, humiliating, ridiculous and gross it could be and still attract enough people to be a financial success. Well...okay, it wasn't the first, not by a long shot. But to me, it felt like the first, because it was the first of its ilk that I ever saw, and thus I had a hell of a time laughing hysterically while clapping my hands over my mouth and going "I can't believe they just showed that!" every three to five minutes along with the 200 other high schoolers in the theatre. And while Hollywood's quest for more and more shocking gags has continued since TSAM, few films postdating it have managed to strike as close a balance between being crass and somehow being classy. I think part of that has to do with what a classy actress Cameron Diaz is; nowadays, you wouldn't catch an actress of her caliber dead in a teen shock film. And I think that part of it had to do with the fact that while there were many jokes and gags played on Ben Stiller's character for the sake of his nerdiness, the jokes played at the expense of love were relatively few, so the romantic element of the movie did not feel like either an afterthought or a mockery.
Anyway, I was in high school when this movie came out, and I loved it then for what it said about the future: that movies were going to push the envelop more and I would be old enough to watch them! Now, out of college, I love it for what it says about the past: that there was a time before Jackass, before Meet the Parents, before Anger Management and before most reality TV, when the envelope-pushing still retained a bit of class, a smattering of restraint, and a small amount of taste (at least by comparison).
---
And that, folks, pretty much marks the end of many of my shorter old reviews. From here on in, they get long, so in the words of Taxi Ride, everybody "get set." It's going to be awesome, if I do say so myself.
FBS