Forget what the critics say (27% on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB Metascore 34/100). If you like the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, I think you’ll enjoy the Ed Helms (The Hangover, television’s The Office) led Vacation. It follows the same formula as the other movies in the series, and it has Ed Helms! Ed Helms is one of the funniest men in Hollywood! He took his bit part in the middle half of The Office and made it impossible for the writers not to keep him. With respect to Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, and Jenna Fischer, The Office became Ed Helms’ show once Steve Carell exited. Even when his movies miss (The Hangover Part III, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard), it’s not because of him. He keeps these terrible movies from becoming complete zeroes. So how good he misses here as a grownup Rusty Griswold with all nuances of his father Clark (Chevy Chase – Spies Like Us, Three Amigos) and his mother Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo – Coal Miner’s Daughter, American History X)? He doesn’t miss at all. Instead, he crushes it in 2015’s comedy of the year.
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Category Archives: Charlie Day
Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)
Horrible Bosses wowed audiences ($117 million) and won over most critics (69% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) in the summer of 2011. The unlikely comedy starred three guys in their late 30’s/early 40’s who absolutely hated the bosses they worked for so much that they plotted ways to get even with them for making their work lives so miserable. With an unlikely group that had TWO Best Actor Academy Award (Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx) winners from the last fifteen years signed on as supporting characters, this cast was a list of who’s who in Hollywood. The movie is hilarious and is very much worth a view. It seems, however, that the same critics who lauded the Horrible Bosses seem to be the same ones crushing Horrible Bosses 2 (just 35% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). While I wouldn’t go so far as to say the sequel was better than the first one, it was comparable in terms of laughs. While the formula is the same, the jokes are new and original, and the payoff is just as good as the original. With that said, I hope that this franchise quits while it’s ahead. I could see a potential Horrible Bosses 3 resulting in an utter disaster.
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Horrible Bosses (2011)
In 2011’s Horrible Bosses, four of this decade’s best actors (Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston, and Collin Farrell) take a backseat to the film’s three stars. The plot of this movie revolves around three friends. Nick (Jason Bateman – Juno, television’s Arrested Development), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis – Hall Pass, We’re the Millers), and Dale (Charlie Day – Going the Distance) are stuck in jobs that are made intolerable because of bosses who make their lives hell. Their bosses are so terrible that the trio wonders how much better their lives would be if they were no longer their current bosses.