About Last Night (2014)

3/5

About Last Night feels like a stale romantic comedy that lacks vision, innovation, and risk-taking. There's nothing particularly bad about it, but it's very, very plain. Kevin Hart and Michael Ealy play best friends. Hart meets Regina Hall and the two enjoy each other's company on an extremely physical level. Ealy finds romance in Joy Bryant, who plays Hall's roommate, and the two get serious fast. Their tale is as old as time: meet, fall in love, break up, reconnect. Kevin Hart and Regina Hall, on the other hand, provide oodles of laughter throughout their on-again, off-again relationship. Although just as predictable from a plot perspective, they bring outrageous hilarity to an otherwise staid, boring movie. About Last Night is mediocre on just about all levels, but the good news is that half of it feels like a Kevin Hart comedy special.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826590/

This Is The End (2013)

4/5

This Is The End is a raunchy, vulgar, hilarious comedy written and directed by Seth Rogen. It is entirely his show, and he delivers the most over-the-top laughs you can imagine by going way farther than you'd expect. The plot follows two friends (Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogen) at James Franco's housewarming party when the apocalypse suddenly strikes. Our unfortunate protagonists are not taken up to heaven in the Rapture. Instead, they must fight hunger, distrust, and well-endowed demons in order to survive.

What makes it more clever than just an average comedy is that all the actors play quasi-real versions of themselves. They look the same and have the same name, but they don't behave the same way they do in real life. The best example is Michael Cera, in the most widely-divergent role of his entire career, playing himself. Even without that twist, it was still a lot of fun seeing a bunch of familiar faces in small cameos.

The cinematic properties are passable but forgettable. And nobody expects to be impressed by those things when they enter a theater to see a Seth Rogen film. Instead, the film stands on its humor, and Rogen is able to deliver side-splitting laughs. His timing is impeccable, whether we are simply witnessing bickering friends or being horrified by extravagant gross-outs and extreme sight gags. (I honestly cannot wrap my head around any reason for there to be so many demon penises on screen in any movie ever.) There were times when I finished laughing and realized I had not inhaled for the previous 30 seconds. Yes, my respiratory rate was literally 2 breaths per minute. This is an amazing movie that I highly recommend for anyone who is a fan of Seth Rogen.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1245492/

The Five-Year Engagement (2012)

3/5

The Five-Year Engagement is a middle-of-the-road modern-day romantic comedy. The movie starts with Tom (Segel) botching his proposal to Violet (Blunt) one year after they first met, then continues on for the next five years as their wedding gets further and further postponed for various reasons. Things crop up in their lives and they start to doubt that they really are perfect for each other. It has its fair share of quirky side characters, some of whom you love (Kaling, Hart, Posehn) and some of whom you love to hate (Pratt, Ifans). It's got the big fight in the middle--although it does it in a way that makes both leads less likeable--and a terrifically sappy ending to jerk some tears out of your nasolacrimal ducts. The humor is occasionally raunchy to give manly men laughs but is usually simple and clean for the more mainstream viewers. It's formula to a T, and it's entertaining enough. It just isn't exciting enough.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1195478/