Review No.176: The Watch

You'd think I'd given up didn't you? Well oh no I'm back and I've got a mammoth slog to get through 15 reviews in the next few days. I might give up again though after having to relive my experiences of enduring The Watch an ensemble 'comedy' about a ragtag neighbourhood watch group that try to bring down some aliens. The film is apparently based on a script that Seth Rogen wrote when he was younger and I have to say I think there's a reason that it's been discarded up to now but for some reason some big name comedy stars decided to sign up. Frat Pack members Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller seem to still be harking back to the glory days of Dodgeball and Starsky and Hutch though both are a lot older now so the gags don't work as well. Stiller stars as Evan a manager of a Costco in the  small suburban neighbourhood of Glenview where he fill his days starting up clubs as he has no real friends. After his co-worker is killed and the police refuse to do anything about it he sets up a neighbourhood watch in attempt of tracking the assailants. Obviously his recruits are a useless bunch of  misfits and include Vaughn's hard-drinking spendaholic Bob, Jonah Hill's slightly psychotic Franklin and Jamarcus a recently divorced Brit played by the brilliant Richard Ayoade. Much to Evan's annoyance Bob uses the watch as a way to escape his family rather than help clean up the neighbourhood however they soon discover that Evan's friend was killed by an alien.. From there this goes into sci-fi comedy territory, think a much less funny version of last year's Paul, as the watch tries to bring down the alien invasion. Obviously all of the characters have their own issues Evan can't get his wife pregnant, Bob's daughter is starting to attract attention from boys, Franklin desperately wants to become a cop and Jarmarcus also has a secret that eventually gets out. Along the way there's swearing, plenty of sexual references and not many laughs. 

As previously mentioned Vaughn and Stiller try to capture the magic of their earlier comic successes however it seems that that magic has now disappeared instead replaced by the sight of two men not acting their age. Jonah Hill doesn't seem to know what to do with his career as he followed Moneyball with The Sitter and then 21 Jump Street with this where he essentially plays a psychopath. Even the usually hilarious Richard Ayoade is rendered unfunny here saddled with a character who basically has a silly name and likes Indian women. The alien plot is poorly handled while the individual stories concerning our four central characters are tedious and predictable. Even the choice of song in the obligatory group sing-a-long scene is a bad one as 'You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet' doesn't really have that flow to it. There's nothing particularly offensive about The Watch however there wasn't really much to like either as this saw four comedy actors purely doing it for the money. The final scene in which the quartet battle the aliens is extremely juvenile as we find out where the aliens' brains are kept I'll give you one guess as to where. Ultimately for a summer comedy there's very little to laugh and you hope that the four men, especially Hill and Ayoade, will go on to bigger and better things in the near future. 

Verdict: An unfunny comedy that isn't particularly offensive but has no merit whatsoever so I'm being generous giving it 2/10

Review No.44: 21 Jump Street

Off to the Stafford Apollo again for another cheap Tuesday screening which was completely empty apart from myself and my two friends. This was good in a way as we were able to laugh like idiots at 21 Jump Street without being judged by any other members of the general public. The film is a recreation of a 1980s US TV show, which is only really known on these shores for bringing Johnny Depp into prominence, and sees two youthful-looking cops going undercover at a high school to infiltrate various crimes. In the case of the film it is Jonah Hill's Schmidt and Channing Tatum's Jenko who are former high school foes turned police academy friends and finally bicycle cop partners. After failing to arrest a gang of drug dealing bikers the pair are placed in the scheme run by Ice Cube's angry black Captain Dickson and assigned to a high school in which a dangerous drug is being dealt and manufactured. After swapping identities the reserved Schmidt is forced to join the drama society where he falls for the quirky Molly while the dumb Jenko is forced into AP Chemistry. It isn't soon before high school rules are swapped and Schmidt falls in with the cool gang while Jenko befriends his fellow science nerds learning that the kids he once bullied are actually quite cool. The drugs plot finally comes to a head during prom night with the final sequence featuring a surprise cameo and the usual predictable outcomes of the main protagonists using the new skills they have acquired during their time at the school.

As I said throughout the film myself and my friends were laughing prefusely and that's mainly due to the comic timing displayed by both Hill and more surprisingly Tatum. In my last review I blasted Tatum for not really having any skill but here he demonstrates that he's best when playing the straight guy in a comedy double act with the more reliable Hill getting the bulk of the joke lines. A lot of the humour is delivered in a knowing way especially when Ice Cube is pointing out the stereotypes on display and the rehashing of old plotlines. There are also some broadly comic sequences in particular a car chase which features a lot of different cars being stolen and Jonah Hill clad in a Peter Pan outfit. There are also some excellent supporting characters including Bridesmaids' Ellie Kemper as the chemistry teacher who is attracted to Jenko and the OTT drama teacher played by Chris Parnell best known to 30 Rock fans as Dr Spaceman. However behind the laughs there is also a sweetness to 21 Jump Street thanks to the great chemistry between Hill and Tatum and it is their central relationship which is key to the film in fact I would go as far as to say that this was a bromanitc comedy. The relationship between Schmidt and Molly is also very well done and we can see for the first time that this loser might have a shot with a girl while Jenko's relationship with the science nerds is also sweet-natured especially his final speech to class. My only problem was the final third when the plot had to be resolved and the revelation of who the supplier was really didn't surprise anyone but even during this time there were enough laughs to keep you distracted from the dodgy plotting. I have to say this is a film that I liked a lot more than I thought I would with Hill redeeming himself after the woeful The Sitter and Tatum demonstrating where his acting skill actually lies.

Verdict: Despite an unsatisfying conclusion this is a very funny film that is made all the more better thanks to great chemistry between its two brilliant leads 7.5/10

Review No.3: The Sitter

So after two fairly heavy dramas I thought I'd relax with a lightweight comedy starring the anything but lightweight Jonah Hill as Noah a layabout who agrees to babysit three kids with hilarious consequences. Obviously the babysitting comedy has been done to death from Kindergarten Cop to The Pacifier to Are We There Yet? but this time there doesn't seem to be anything particularly in it for Noah apart from letting his mother have a night out. That might make Noah sound more decent than he actually is but there aren't really any decent adult characters here as he basically decides to take these kids to a drug dealer to by some cocaine for his psycho would-be girlfriend so she'd have sex with him. Along the way he gets accused of being a paedophile, steals thousands of pounds from a teenage girl and steals his dad's car apparent revenge for years of neglect. We are meant to feel sorry for Noah as he's treated badly by his dad and the girlfriend but really Noah doesn't know how to behave like a normal person and why his sweet former college classmate Roxanne constantly pursues him is anyone's guess. The kids are fairly stereotypical there's the neurotic Slater, the wannabe celebrity Blithe and the frankly weird Latino adopted sibling Rodrigo.

All these stereotypes, racism and homophobia would be fine if The Sitter were funny but I found it hard to stifle more than a titter but if you find waiters slipping over urine funny then you're in for a treat. Obviously life lessons are learnt along the way but they are so obvious from the get-go that there are really no surprises to be had here. I'm honestly not sure why Jonah Hill did this after being my favourite thing about Moneyball he seems to have taken a step backwards playing the same goofy loser he did in Superbad. Sam Rockwell is the only other name here but his crazy drug-dealer character has been seen in dozens have films and has been done much better in what is generally a waste of Rockwell's talents. If I were to pick the best actor it would have to be Max Records, best known for Where the Wild Things Are, as older brother Slater he actually manages to create a realistic character from the mess of a script and you do care more about him than the rest of the bunch. David Gordon Green's career also seems to be on a downward trajectory and I thought Your Highness was bad but this is even worse maybe he should just stick to making the sublime Eastbound and Down and forget about films for a while if The Sitter is anything to go by.

Verdict: An unfunny and offensive comedy only saved by a couple of good performances so I will give it 2 out of 10 and that's being generous.