THIS IS THE END

I’m not always the biggest fan of Judd Apatow-esque comedy so going into This Is The End I didn’t actually know a majority of the cast/ cameos! Obviously there is Seth Rogan (who I have liked ever since 50/50) and James Franco (who I’ve liked ever since I saw his face – I’m only human!) but Jay Baruchel? Danny McBride? Craig Robinson? I know Jonah Hill as a name but am not the biggest fan of his films. When I first watched the trailer I thought that it looked funny and the concept of actors playing themselves really appealed to me, however, as I didn’t know half of the main cast I was doubtful over whether or not I would enjoy it as I thought the jokes might be mostly ‘in-jokes’ that non-fans of their films wouldn’t understand… It took a couple of weeks of reading nothing but good reviews for me to decide to just give it a chance and hope for the best!

This Is The End tells the story of a group of famous actors who are having a party at James Franco’s house when the apocalypse begins. Having witnessed the grisly death of fellow party-goers, Rogan, Franco, Baruchel, McBride, Hill and Robinson find themselves standard together in Franco’s house with limited food and water, fighting for survival.

It took a while for me to develop any faith in this movie, the pre-apocalypse scenes felt a bit awkward and clumsy; making it obvious that much of the script had been improvised. The party scenes were very much just a game of Spot The Celebrity and, as Seth Rogan’s films tend to go, the comedy was mostly coming from weed references and sex jokes, which isn’t my kind of humour to say the least. However, once the erm, apocalypse began and the film got into the swing of things the laughs came thick and fast; the half a dozen actors who make up the main cast have a fantastic rapport and work really naturally together, and that is what made the film so funny. Without the fuss of the party and fitting in as many celebrity cameos as possible the central cast had a chance to flourish and although it was never going to be the most integral or witty film of the year, it does exactly what it says on the tin – simple, silly but very enjoyable.

The Holy Trinity

As you may have guessed from my previous reviews, comedy films have to work the hardest to impress me. I’m not naturally drawn to comedy films and there are few that I find laugh-out-loud funny, especially new releases. But This Is The End had me and the rest of the cinema laughing out loud constantly, the script (improvised or not) was so strong for a film of this standing and a lot of the time I found it to be the small moments that made the film. The muttered-under-the-breath comments, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments, the holy trinity being compared to Neapolitan ice cream – the humour came in a variety of ways and almost all of them were spot on for me.  In fact, I saw this film last night and have since found myself giggling at the memory of particular quips and comments (the ‘elephant in the room’ comment has been getting to me the most I have to admit) - That’s when you know that you have seen a good film!

The cast had great chemistry

As well as the humour, the storyline was strong – it kept my attention and had me wondering what would happen next. However, towards the end it became a little bit repetitive and very predictable, if the film were to have gone on for even ten minutes longer I think that it would have been ruined so I am glad that it finished when it did, although a post-credit scene showing the fate of the other characters wouldn't have gone amiss! The cast worked flawlessly together, obviously they are all friends in real life but this really translated to the big screen and the natural chemistry that the actors all have with eachother is what made This Is The End so believable to watch (not the apocalypse part, obviously, but the way that the cast reacted to the apocalypse and to eachother was very realistic) and there were some very welcome references to classic horror movies such as The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, that film fans will appreciate but unfortunately appeared to go over most of the audience's head!

In short, this is a fun, enjoyable and hilarious film that delivers 100%. I feel that there is a bit of pretention against it with people criticizing and passing the film off as nothing more than a group of self-righteous actors getting together, fooling around and cashing in…. And do you know what? That is exactly what This Is The End is, but when the end result is so strong what on Earth is the problem with that?!

All in all I award This Is The End with ★★★★☆



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Love,

P.S. I do kind of wish Neil Patrick Harris had a cameo :(

DESPICABLE ME 2

 

 Okay, I love Despicable Me, it was without a doubt one of the best films of 2010 and one of the greatest in this generation's batch of children's films. I was so excited to see this sequel and had only heard good things about it until the day before I was due to see it, and this criticism disheartened me. In fact, one review said that it was just plain awful, Agnes is no longer adorable and the minions are hardly in it... Now that I have seen it all I can say to that critic is: What the hell did you watch?!

Despicable Me 2 is completely level, if not a tiny bit better, than the original film and if you are a fan of the first film I genuinely struggle to see what there is for you to actively dislike. I can understand why you might preference the first but there really isn't anything in the second film that is offensive to fans of the first or is really that different in any way. I will admit that yes, Gru is no longer despicable. But this is quite a natural character development that we actually see happen at the end of the first film. Despicable Me ends with Gru being a reformed man, he is no longer evil-orientated but family-orientated and I don't know why anyone would thus go into the sequel and expect for him to have gone backwards as a character and if he had done it would have really turned me off. The fact that Gru is now such a family-man who worries about his eldest daughter dating and throws princess-parties for his youngest is funny and works perfectly, especially in the context of the first film where we saw these changes first begin to develop.

The fact that Gru is less despicable and more family-orientated means that overall the focus of the film is less despicable - gone are the days of trying to be the biggest villain in the World, Gru is now being recruited by the AntiVillainLeague to help catch a new super-villain. Whilst there are a substantial amount of villain-esque scenes (Secret plotting, spying, weapons and gadgets) much of the film is centred on Gru's relationship with his girls as well as a romantic subplot and this is where the biggest laughs come. Personally, i much preferred this angle; it was refreshing and set Despicable Me 2 miles above other children's films. All in all the underlying essence of this film was something that absolutely everybody in the audience could relate to - family. And that is what makes it so great.

The Minions are out in force!

However, don't let this family drivel make you think that Despicable Me 2 has lost the humour that ultimately made the first film. Once again Steve Carell delivers an outstanding performance as Gru and he yet again brings so much life and personality to an animated character that he has definitely cemented himself as one of the greatest voice over performers of our time. As well as Carell's hilarious delivery of Gru, the minions are out in force (and this is reason number one as to why i think the aforementioned reviewer hadn't actually seen the film). The minions are in this film excessively more than the first, and to begin with I was a little wary because I was worried that if this continued throughout the entire film and they became dependent on the minions for laughs then it would become overbearing and the minions would end up losing their charm. However, the film's creators actually manage to strike the perfect balance and whilst the minions did end up making the audience laugh the most, it wasn't in a desperate way. In fact, the minions are the best representation of how clever and well-made this film is - a minion is ultimately a little yellow blob, there seem to be an infinite number of them and they don't even speak a proper language... Yet each minion we are introduced to appears to have its own clear and concise personality and can make an entire cinema filled with grown-ups laugh out loud just by making a noise. If that isn't representative of a well-made film then I don't know what is.

As well as the minions, (and reason number two as to why i think the aforementioned reviewer hadn't actually seen the film) Agnes is even more hilarious, lovable and adorable as she is in the first film. She is in it much more but yet again, not in an over-bearing way and whilst she gets the most attention of the three girls, the other two are sure not to disappear into the background. Agnes is the scene-stealer of the film, I looked forward to her presence and was never disappointed by her little quips and one-liners but I think Edith and Margo are just as necessary to the film's plot and without the three of them together it would not have worked as well as it did.

Agnes steals the show

To conclude, Despicable Me 2 is a testament to the clearly incredible creative team behind it - the characters are perfectly balanced and gel flawlessly together, the storyline was a realistic development to the original and had just as much, if not more,  heart, humour and life about it. Most importantly, the film's creators clearly saw what worked and was loved by the audience in the first film (i.e. Minions and Agnes) and expanded upon them in the sequel - they paid attention to the audience's response and delivered something that they knew would appeal. Usually once a film finds the character that works they are tempted to be lazy in sequels and just exhaust these characters in order to get cheap, tried-and-tested laughs out of the audience (Hangover III i'm looking at you), Despicable Me 2 had the potential to just go the easy way out and solely depend on the minions and Agnes to carry the film but thankfully they had more self-respect as a franchise and respect for the audience than that. Whilst the minions and Agnes are my personal highlights, the rest of the film's overall quality did not suffer in the slightest - Despicable Me 2 is clearly a film that had a lot of hard work, creativity and imagination go into it, it isn't lazy in any way and that is what makes it such a success.

All in all i award Despicable Me 2 with ★★★★★

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Love,

THE INTERNSHIP

 

One of the reasons that I was so grateful to have been offered tickets to an advanced screening of The Internship last night was because, for me, it was one of those films where you are wary of whether or not it will be worth paying the increasingly extortionate price of a cinema ticket. I’m not going to lie, the trailer had definitely caught my attention and I did find myself thinking that it might actually be pretty good but Wilson/ Vaughn films are so hit and miss for me and following my latest comedy experience with The Hangover III I just didn’t know if I wanted to pay for such disappointment once again. 

The Internship tells the story of Nick (Owen Wilson) and Billy (Vince Vaughn), two forty-something-year-old men who find themselves unemployed and at a dead end in their lives. They somehow become interns at Google and find themselves completely lost in a World of young, technology-savvy kids that they need to compete with in order to get a shot at full-time employment.

Google is great, let's worship Google

Upon seeing the trailer I had labeled the film as a two-hour, six-million-dollar, egotistical marketing campaign to show how great and brilliant and fun Google is, and with the website’s logo emblazoned across every promotional piece to do with the film I doubt that I am the only one to have made such assumptions. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only was the film’s entire concept in fact the brain-child of actor and screenwriter Vince Vaughn, but also that Google didn’t pay a penny for all of the product placement and Google-loving promotion that the film gives it (yet still had to give its final depiction approval before the film could be released). I just find this absolutely mind-blowing - in exchange for the entire film Google gave cast and crew five days access to Google headquarters. FIVE DAYS ACCESS FOR A TWO HOUR LONG PROMOTION. My mind boggles but we are getting off topic - back to the film!

As it goes, the film was actually better than I expected. It is feel-good and heartwarming with some genuinely funny moments that had me laughing-out-loud. As I said, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson aren’t always a winning formula for me and although I love Starsky and Hutch, there are other films of theirs that overstep the mark and are just a bit too stupid for me to enjoy.**

I was relieved to find that The Internship falls closer to the Starsky and Hutch end of the Wilson/Vaughn spectrum; no insensitive or shock-dependent attempts at humour and  no borderline-slapstick stupidity. Although there were times where Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson were a bit too… Well, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson and their buffoon-like, over-the-top antics became a little overbearing, the overall comedic essence that is carried throughout the film is witty and laugh-out-loud funny enough for the over the top parts to not detract too much from your total enjoyment of

The central cast has great chemistry

the film. The supporting cast was strong with some likeable albeit incredibly stereotypical characters – the genius Asian, the sultry good-looking heartthrob, the sexually repressed women and the token fat kid to name a few. Although the characters were conventional, the more central ones still had layers and depth that you may not find in other films of this sort and the way that the cast gelled together and you saw their relationships blossom made you feel connected as a viewer and actually care about the characters fate.The chemistry between the central cast was faultless and i found myself really believing in them all as a team with realistic and natural character development between them.

The thing with The Internship is that the characters are cliches, the story-arc is predictable and the humour is obvious but that doesn’t mean that it is bad viewing. If you are signing up to a light-hearted comedy then this film really does tick all of the boxes, it is by no means a cinematic masterpiece and it won’t blow your mind but I would question you if you were watching an Owen Wilson comedy in the hope of being artistically inspired. 

The Internship isn’t a film that will change your life but it will probably leave you with a fuzzy feeling inside, a smile on your face and a little bit of inner-anguish that you are not technological enough to ever get a job at Google. Though I wouldn’t urge you to head out and watch it as a matter of priority, if you are undecided on what to watch or just need a good laugh then it is worth seeing and as long as your expectations are realistic for a film of this kind, I highly doubt that you will be disappointed. 

All in all I award The Internship: ★★★✯ ☆
                                                                                      (three and a half)

The Internship is out nationwide from tomorrow, Wednesday 3rd July!

Stay tuned for more reviews and follow me on twitter if you fancy it :)

Love,

**

(Wedding Crashers in particular I can not stand, granted I have never watched further than the male rape scene near the beginning of the film but any film that depicts a man being tied up in his sleep and a girl having sex with him whilst he repeatedly says that he doesn’t want to and it being represented as a comedy isn’t for me – to read my dissertation on the representation of male rape in cinema then click here)