The Other Woman (2014)

4/5

The Other Woman is a surprisingly stellar film, funny and emotional in just the right concentrations. The plot follows Carly (Diaz) as a high-powered lawyer who discovers that the man she's dating, Mark (Coster-Waldau), has both a wife (Mann) and a second mistress (Upton). The initial premise sounds bland and cliché at first--and little more than a substandard chick flick--but it surprises time and time again. The writing is extremely well-done (e.g., "cry on the inside like a winner") and the characters feel much more fleshed out than those occupying your standard rom-com. Diaz is truly outstanding. I am not a fan of Cameron Diaz in general, but this is honestly one of my favorites roles from her entire career.

The Other Woman has a couple of flaws. First, it is filled with unusual, sometimes uncomfortable, music choices. Second, Mark's final comeuppance (despite how much we have all grown to hate him) is excessively over-the-top, indulging in way too much schadenfreude for comfort. But for all it gets wrong, it gets the most important things right. The Other Woman is a comedy with heart and strong characters that make you a little better off after watching it. And isn't that what movies are all about?

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2203939/

Rio 2 (2014)

3/5

Rio 2 is a lot like Rio, but with more blue birds. The movie brings back Blu (Eisenberg) and Jewel (Hathaway), now married with three kids: a bookworm (Stenberg), a daredevil (Gagnon), and a singer (Crow). They actually remind me of someone else's three kids, although those kids are much cooler than these birds =). They find their way back to Jewel's home, where she reunites with her father (Garcia) and a smooth-talking childhood friend (Mars). But their time together is about to be cut short (literally) when an amoral businessman has plans to destroy their rain forest home to make a profit.

The new characters all feel rather stereotypical, like clichés added in to fill a gap nobody cared was there. Instead of writing the story first, figuring out who was important and why, it felt like financiers and producers told the creative team to incorporate a celebrity singer and characters that fit mold x, y, and z. They were just stuffed in to an already crowded cast without much added value. Bruno Mars seems to have been brought in solely for his singing voice (although his acting isn't too bad), as he headlines almost all the songs.

All in all, the movie is still fun--it's actually a great way to spend the afternoon--but it's just not the same novel experience that the first one was. With its star-studded cast, it certainly has one or two famous actors or actresses you'll enjoy watching.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2357291/

Rio (2011)

4/5

Rio is an insanely fun adventure flick with a fantastic cast and delightful animation. The movie takes place in Rio, as you might expect, where a blue macaw (Eisenberg) is brought by an ornithologist (Santoro) to mate with a female macaw (Hathaway) and save their species. Unfortunately, the pair are stolen by exotic animal smugglers who want to take them out of the country and sell them to the highest bidder!

The best part about the movie is how beautiful it looks. The cinematography is inventive and liberating, letting us fly through scenes with its feathered cast. The colors are bright and the editing is fine-tuned. The Latin music feels authentic and invigorating. But the characters are generic and the acting is only adequate. I can't help but see the actors instead of the characters. The story isn't the most imaginative in the world, but the script is full of both terrific visual gags and hilarious witticisms. All in all, Rio is a whole lot of fun and a great way to spend an afternoon.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1436562/

This Is 40 (2012)

3/5

Judd Apatow's This Is 40 is the coyly self-proclaimed "sort-of sequel" to Knocked Up. Except the two main characters of that movie can't seem to find the time to even make a cameo here (despite its 135 minute runtime). Instead we get to see the unhappily-married life of Pete (Rudd) and Debbie (Mann) as they approach middle age.

The movie wasn't bad so much as it was overlong. I know it wasn't as long as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it certainly felt that way. It had a meandering plot that rotated around both funny and unfunny subplots instead of having a real story arc to propel it forward. The humor it contained was surprisingly topical and observational, kind of like an updated version of Seinfeld for married life, but not as timeless and not as hilarious. It was just kind of there. It was clearly a project that Judd Apatow wanted to do more than one audiences wanted to see.

What makes the movie even more frustrating is that the story starts to spin out of control and--instead of tying up loose ends, or even attempting to--it just ends in a musical rainbow of blah. What? Does Apatow think people don't need resolution any more? We're okay with movies just stopping when the writers don't have any good ideas anymore? Honestly, I left the movie about the same as when I came in, except with a lower credit balance and a half-eaten bucket of popcorn. Trust the "mixed" reviews: this movie is mediocre.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758830/

17 Again (2009)

3/5

17 Again is a movie that surprised me for many reasons. It's funnier than I expected and more heartwarming than I imagined. The story is fairly simple and juvenile: faced with impending divorce, Mike O'Donnell (Perry) is transported back to his high school form (Efron), where he helps his daughter (Trachtenberg) break up with a sleazebag (Parrish) and gives his son (Knight) confidence to stand up against bullies while simultaneously winning back his wife's affection (Mann). I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone who has been living under a rock since the invention of cinema and is unfamiliar with how Hollywood works, but let's just say this movie ends in the expected manner.

The acting and the dialogue are where this movie shines. It is probably Zac Efron's best acting to date. I know that's not really saying much, but he was actually pretty good. The script was far more poignant than I thought it would be given its premise, and far more clever and witty than I gave it credit for. The basic plot of a major life change prompting someone to re-evaluate their priorities feels quite tired and trite, and this movie attempts to freshen it up with an unnecessarily silly scenario instead of a realistic, believable one. I think it could have been an awesome movie if they chose the latter route, but this decision, as well as most of the directorial traits and technical aspects, ended up making the movie mediocre, unremarkable, and forgettable. All in all, not a bad movie and above average as a form of entertainment, but I'm a little disappointed that it wasn't more than that.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0974661/

Funny People (2009)

3/5

Despite the rating of 3 stars, Judd Apatow's Funny People is not a mediocre movie. It's actually a great movie that suffers from some serious flaws. The plot follows star comedian George Simmons (Sandler) after he is diagnosed with AML. While depressed, he hires young stand-up comic Ira Wright (Rogen) to be his assistant and help write jokes for him. He finally starts accepting his impending death and, because of it, begins rekindling old relationships, including the love of his life, Laura (Mann). He miraculously recovers and, with his new lease on life, decides to pursue Laura and what he hopes is the key to his happiness.

Some of the scenes in this movie are incredibly powerful and moving (for example, when he first finds out about the disease, or when he fears that the drugs are making him sicker, or when he starts opening up to people, or the complicated mess they get into at the end). Some of the scenes, mostly the stand-up routines, are ridiculously hilarious. And I especially loved all the scenes where real-life comedians (Norm MacDonald, Dave Attell, Sarah Silverman, Ray Romano) play themselves. But some scenes just muddle the message and some scenes that need to be there just aren't. It's frustrating in a movie that seems so close to greatness fall so short. And it's unsatisfying. Even after 2 hours and 15 minutes, when I realized the credits were about to roll on the final shot, I thought to myself, "That's it? There's nothing more he has to say?"

The humor is actually fairly dissonant; you get the Adam Sandler humor of old mixed with the Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow humor of new and they just don't go together. I often had to force myself to laugh at most of Sandler's comedic lines. I never really found him that funny to start with, and this movie didn't change my opinion. On the bright side, the acting was effective and empathetic, from all parties, and most directorial decisions were spot-on. The cinematography was surprisingly effective at setting mood and evoking emotion with simple point-of-view shots. The editing was good for the most part, although it lagged in some parts as well. All in all, the movie was technically proficient with some very emotional scenes that ultimately leave you unfulfilled and aggravated. If you like Judd Apatow movies, you'll probably like this one, but it's definitely not as good as his other two.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1201167/