Sometimes when someone is describing a movie to someone who might be on the fence about it, they might say something like, “Yes, it’s a kids’ movie, but it’s made for adults. So much of the humor will go straight over a child’s head.” This rarely, if ever, works and can be a terrible tactic. Yet, here I find myself again writing a review for a movie that I knew I was not going to enjoy (though I knew I would see it regardless because of the hype, favorable review, and gnawing curiosity) under the pretense that the movie was made for me when it was not. However, that was not the half of it. With most animated films, children are likely to be entertained and understand the story, even if that story parallels an overarching story intended more to reach adults. Greta Gerwig’s (Lady Bird, Little Women) Barbie had all the shininess of Mattel’s most iconic toy and was often shot in such a simplistic way that it felt like it was perhaps aimed toward children, but this was not a kids’ movie. Its clever and ubiquitous marketing campaign seemed more interested in selling out as many theaters as possible for as long as possible before revealing its plot. It did work. The film grossed over $150 million domestically in its first three days. To the film’s credit, it was a PG-13 film, though I bought into the intrigue so much that I hadn’t even looked at the rating until I left the theater.
Category Archives: Will Ferrell
Daddy’s Home (2015)
With apologies to the extremely funny The Campaign, first-time co-director John Morris and Sean Anders’s (Horrible Bosses 2, Sex Drive) Daddy’s Home is, ironically, Will Ferrell’s (Old School, Step Brothers) best-starring comedy role since 2010’s The Other Guys. It’s not a movie I thought I would particularly like and one that I had serious doubts about as much as 20 minutes in (I hadn’t laughed but maybe one time), but as the movie progressed, it got funnier and funnier. By its conclusion, it became a somewhat memorable movie that I wouldn’t put on the “A-shelf” comedy list but might find itself just a notch below. What made the movie work was the dynamics between Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (Lone Survivor, The Fighter), who didn’t have the same chemistry they had when they teamed partners in the buddy cop The Other Guys but were still pretty close. While Daddy’s Home was 100% completely predictable, it didn’t make it any less fun, and while Ferrell and Wahlberg weren’t exceptionally awesome in the scenes where they weren’t together, it more than made up for during the scenes where they shared screen time.
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The Campaign (2012)
Add The Campaign to the list of laugh-out-loud Will Ferrell (Old School, The Other Guys) movies. For as many misses as Will Ferrell has (like Case de mi padre, Land of the Lost, and Semi-Pro), he strikes gold just as often. He’s not the draw that he was at the height of his career (between 2003-2005), but he still can make me laugh as well as any other actor out there. At the same time, he plays roughly the same type of character in most of his movies. It doesn’t make him any less funny. He has gone overboard in some of his films (Blades of Glory, Anchorman), but when he lets the script come to him, he’s a lot of fun to watch on the screen.
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The Other Guys (2010)
It’s not going to get on many Top 10 lists (especially when released in 2010, the best year for movie releases in my lifetime), but The Other Guys is fun. One of my only complaints about the great year for movies that was 2010 was that it lacked a great horror film and a great comedy. Though I have not seen it, I thought Get Him To The Greek might be the comedy movie I was looking for. While that is a movie I will still watch, it no longer has the potential to be the top comedy of 2010. I believe that ranking belongs to The Other Guys.
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Everything Must Go (2011)
Everything Must Go was not Will Ferrell’s (Old School, Blades of Glory) first attempt at anything more than silly humor. He did a great job as a socially awkward and isolated IRS agent in Stranger Than Fiction. In more of a subdued role (Winter Passing), Ferrell plays a would-be musician. This movie could have been better, and Ferrell looked out of place. While he can still crank out $100 million laugh-out-loud comedies (2010’s The Other Guys, 2008’s Step Brothers), he is still trying to show the world that he can do more than make people laugh. He does just that in Everything Must Go, a movie with a few subtle laughs but one with its lead character not delivering the joke. In this regard, the film did an excellent job.