Tag Archives: #markstrong

Murder Mystery 2

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Release: Friday, March 31, 2023 (Netflix)

👀 Netflix

Written by: James Vanderbilt

Directed by: Jeremy Garelick

Starring: Adam Sandler; Jennifer Aniston; Mark Strong; Mélanie Laurent; Jodie Turner-Smith; John Kani; Adeel Akhtar; Dany Boon

Distributor: Netflix

 

**/*****

As far as generic entertainment goes, you could do a lot worse than Murder Mystery 2. As far as movies bearing the Happy Madison banner go, you could do a lot more offensive. Neither of which is a firm recommendation, but considering the wobbly, paper-thin premise that barely justified a one-time outing I am happy to be able to recommend this at all.

With the same lukewarm chemistry as before, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston reprise their roles as Nick and Audrey Spitz, a middle-aged married couple with a side hustle in private eyeing who last time out turned Monte Carlo upside down. Four years later the pair have somehow fallen up and are now full-time detectives, but their problem is they lack business. It’s gotten to the point where it’s affecting their marriage. Nick believes it’s a case of getting better marketing; Audrey’s adamant they get their license (after all, she’s read the Dummies Guide to Detecting cover to cover).

An opportunity to spice things up comes in the form of a wedding invitation to a private island, where their old pal Vikram “The Maharajah” (British actor Adeel Akhtar, returning alongside John Kani as Colonel Ulenga and Dany Boon as Inspector Clouseau Delacroix) is set to marry the wealthy and beautiful Claudette (Mélanie Laurent). But no sooner have Nick and Audrey begun indulging in the fruits of their all-expenses-paid vacation do they find themselves embroiled in another conspiracy — the colorful ceremony concluding with the death of at least one attendee and Vikram being kidnapped and held for $70 million in Paris.

Director Jeremy Garelick provides a couple of goofy sequences depicting our heroes in peril, but as a mystery this is pretty dire. The story (by James Vanderbilt, a writer whose credibility includes David Fincher’s 2007 crime drama Zodiac) lacks any kind of personality or invention, the sequel exchanging a lying husband for a poorly performing one to create some semblance of tension and character depth. Neither the list of suspects nor Mark Strong‘s Connor Miller, a former hostage negotiator for MI6 who turns up to do the job Nick and Audrey should not be doing, are interesting or feel like real people. They’re certainly not characters you want to spend time with beyond these 80 mandated minutes.

While Sandler and Aniston don’t quite fall into that category, they’re not exactly lighting up the screen either as they attempt once again to clear their name while proving their bonafides. Of course, the in-joke all along has been this lack of legitimacy — a couple of amateurs bumbling their way to professional results in a series of events tantamount to a miracle. The actors on their own are likable but as a couple they’re far from convincing, and that’s microcosmic of this franchise-in-the-making.

Though Murder Mystery 2 fails to take its basic concept to any new heights (unless you count the Eiffel Tower) surprisingly little about it truly qualifies as a chore to watch. Then again, just as much about it truly qualifies as worth remembering.

Duped ’em again!

Moral of the Story: These movies aren’t very good but I’d much rather sit through a third round of this kind of harmless wish fulfillment than a second more of Sandler’s desperately unfunny collaborations with the Rob Schneiders and David Spades of Hollywood. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 80 mins. 

Quoted: “You’ve done hostage negotiations?”

“I’m married to this lady. Everything’s a negotiation. I got it.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

The Brothers Grimsby

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'The Brothers Grimsby' movie poster

Release: Friday, March 11, 2016

[Theater]

Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen; Phil Johnston; Peter Baynham

Directed by: Louis Leterrier

There’s something about Sacha Baron Cohen that really makes you feel like a complete idiot. He’s become really good at that because here I went, blinded by my own boredom, to a screening where I was the only viewer and thinking, ‘Okay, this might be fun. At least I can laugh obnoxiously loud and not think twice when something actually funny happens.’ The joke was on me, an idiot.

The Brothers Grimsby is, to put it nicely, Cohen’s own Mortdecai; it’s the stinkiest, lamest, dumbest release so far this year and like Johnny Depp’s misguided attempt at mocking the English, it marks another point of no return. While it was naïve to think that Brüno would be the nadir of the career of one of England’s great embarrassments, that movie was pretty terrible — Brüno not Mortdecai, although yes, very much Mortdecai as well — and it set quite a low bar regarding the efforts a movie should make in entertaining or offering escapement.

But what Louis Leterrier et al don’t seem to understand is that that’s not the kind of bar you play limbo with; the goal is not to see how low you can go. Lo and behold, they deliver a revolting mess of a comedy that uses bodily fluids as both literal and figurative lubricant to make up for the script’s refusal to do any of the work. There’s one scene in particular that’s offensive and sums up almost everything that is wrong with not only this film but the entire subculture of sadistically gross-out comedy. Those poor fucking elephants (and that’s the verb, not the adjective). This exercise in visual torture is what would happen if you gave Mel Gibson free reign over the fake rhino birthing scene from Ace Ventura. The excessiveness will test the sensitivity of your gag reflex, and that’s an issue that runs all throughout.

So who are ‘the brothers Grimsby?’ And why is the American release so awkwardly titled? Well, who gives a shit about the why; let’s talk about the what. The brothers are a pair of mismatched boys who were born and raised in the poor fishing town of Grimsby, which resembles the bottom of a dumpster or a very large ash tray. Cohen plays Nobby Butcher, the yoonga bruvva of Sebastian “superspy” Butcher (Mark Strong, painfully out of place). The pair have been separated since they were six years old and Nobby longs for the day they meet again.

Similar to previous outings Cohen opts for caricature over character, hoping to inflict the maximum amount of damage upon the culture that supposedly spawned his creation. Once a Middle Eastern pervert, then a one-time gay Austrian fashion journalist, he now finds himself donning the mutton chops and packing on the beer gut as a soccer hooligan with a proclivity for thick women and thick-battered fish-and-chips. He’s like a pig writhing around in the grease and sweat of intoxicated Man United fans all crammed into the pub watching The Big Match.

The world we visit in The Brothers Grimsby isn’t a pretty one, it’s populated by the so-called ‘scum’ of English society — the derelicts and the blue collar chumps, the illiterate and the really ugly and sweaty. Fans who may have been delusional enough in the past to liken the Cohen moviegoing experience to crude culture shock can’t really say the same thing now; the only thing shocking about this film is how uncultured it truly is. Nobby has far more screen time than his older bro, and that’s disappointing because ultimately Sebastian provides our only respite from the cartoonish extremism Leterrier has fashioned here. But the real question there has to be, how clear is Strong’s calendar right now? He had time for this?

Scenes featuring the MI6 agent in action — think of James Bond only with more baggage and less hair — feel like they are ripped straight from the upcoming Hardcore Henry, what with the liberal usage of point-of-view shots designed to raise both our heart rates and awareness of Go Pro cameras. While the action sequences are a welcomed distraction, they’re still not an excuse for the sheer pointlessness of everything else. A subplot involving Sebastian’s line of work is as generic as you can get: he must stop a shady organization from releasing a virus into the atmosphere at a high-profile soccer match. They’re doing this because of the global population crisis.

This paragraph that you’re reading now is definitely an edited version of what lay before, but in consideration of my readers I’ll just say that the film’s attempt to balance action and heartfelt drama with Cohen’s insufferable presence is funnier than any of the comedic elements presented here. The Brothers Grimsby ultimately fails when it tries to convince us of their shared history. I saw the look on Strong’s face during the “suck my balls” scene. He didn’t want anything to do with this. What, was Rob Schneider busy?

Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong in 'The Brothers Grimsby'

Recommendation: Sacha Baron Cohen may still have appeal for some but after The Brothers Grimsby, a film that fails to mine comedy out of what little interesting material it presents while continuing to mistake causing its audience to actually gag for comedic gags, this reviewer has officially stepped off the bandwagon. A film that caters to the lowest common denominator and looking  really bored with itself in the process, this is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 83 mins.

Quoted: “Oh, these heated seats make you feel like you’ve pissed yourself!”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.mymoviewallpapers.com

The Imitation Game

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Release: Friday, November 28, 2014

[Theater] 

Written by: Graham Moore

Directed by: Morten Tyldum

The most glorious name in the biz has found a way to take his game to yet another level.

It’s far too easy to get caught up in the minutia of how authentic Benedict Cumberbatch’s interpretation of one of Britain’s greatest minds comes across, without giving thought to how the rest of the film stacks up around him. Ditto that to making comparisons between this and Ron Howard’s ode to one of the world’s greatest economists, John Forbes Nash. In terms of the latter, things become a bit too surreal during The Imitation Game‘s very own “eureka!” moment, wherein our esteemed Alan Turing is inspired suddenly by a beautiful woman he meets at a bar.

Unfortunately such comparisons call attention to themselves as the vast majority of Tyldum’s creation complies with the unspoken, unwritten code of conduct that a great many directors guiltily adhere to for reasons unknown: your film has to feel safe and History-channel-friendly. Tonally, this is a rather restrained production — the Norwegian director paying respect to a man who hasn’t received due credit; boldly choosing to avoid confronting his viewers with graphic violence or flurries of emotionally distressing scenes. There are broad and narrow brushstrokes applied in shaping Turing’s life, both pre- and post-Bletchley Park and the mix results in a thoroughly enjoyable picture, even if this is paint-by-numbers filming at its finest.

The Imitation Game centers around the years Turing and his limited pool of resources — the other mathematicians he could just barely tolerate (an exaggeration for the film’s purposes; Turing actually got along well with his colleagues in reality) — spend in Bletchley, a private sector within the southern English burrough of Birmingham specifically dedicated to intercepting and deciphering German code during the war. Tyldum offers intercutting scenes to Turing’s school years where he is presented as a rather confident young man, even at that age. Flash forward to the present to find a genius standing like a statue even in the face of almost certain failure — and possible death at the hands of the government should he choose to reveal any information to the outside world.

The end game here boils down to the same objective that these people somehow reached back in 1945: Turing wanted to develop a device to intercept and decipher code at a much faster rate than the current method his “team” had been going on. (Anyone feel up for manually deciphering 150 million million different code combinations?) He upsets more people when his device fails to produce the results expected immediately. Instead it would take some time — and some mediocre threats from his higher-ups, particularly Commander Alistair Denniston (Charles Dance), who, during one of the film’s more amusing opening scenes, is understandably rubbed the wrong way by his latest hire.

The medium of the moving picture affords even the most dutiful director a great deal of freedom to operate, and Tyldum’s project demonstrates that you can tweak factual accuracy for the sake of creating a compelling watch that teases what matters most out of some truly remarkable circumstances. There is a lot of information he chooses not to share, and the things he does choose to share makes Turing out to be brutally lacking in social etiquette when really he was just difficult to figure out. Damn mathematicians being all hoity-toity and whatnot. . .

Cumberbatch is surrounded by a cast that contributes solid efforts, despite every single one of its members feeling like props to support the main character (essentially, I guess that’s what these individuals really were, all cogs in a much larger machine). Even Keira Knightley’s Joan Clarke is not as luminous as she could be, though Knightley’s work cannot be faulted. She’s very good as the only female team member in a time where she was considered out of place, but unfortunately this political point is not at all capitalized on.

Safe but supremely entertaining and an important story to be told, The Imitation Game feels less inspired as it does obligatory but there’s nothing really wrong with that. This is a film that may be begging for Oscar’s attention in February but it does deserve at least some with what Cumberbatch has been able to accomplish here.

imitation-game-1

3-5Recommendation: Coupled with a bravura performance from Benedict Cumberbatch and a suitably respectful tone The Imitation Game at times feels like a history lesson, but only in the manner in which that connotation seems positive. History is often violent, and history is often extremely surprising. The problem is how to get non-film students (and non-history majors) to appreciate that. Here’s a film that may fabricate a few things in order to allow its themes to be properly expressed, but the intention is to never skew reality. Rather it is to condense events into a timeline that the people who have ignored Turing for too long should be able to appreciate.

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 114 mins.

Quoted: “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com