The Out-Laws (2023) - Movie Review

Dammit, I knew that getting lucky with Murder Mystery 2 being kind of decent wasn’t going to last. Although honestly, I have some morbid appreciation for this because I didn’t even think they made American comedies like this any more. Both here and for my FilmInk work, I find myself regularly bringing up how modern US comedies seem to spend a lot of time just ad-libbing and riffing instead of actually moving the plot forward or doing anything interesting with the characters. Nowadays, most filmmakers have gotten it into their heads that comedy can help advance a story instead of just grinding it to a halt for little to no reason, but there are some brave little soldiers who are doing their best to keep that style alive.

Isn't It Romantic? (2019) - Movie Review

You know a certain genre has reached a level of ubiquity when ‘it’s ___ for people who hate ___’ is a legit selling point. Of course, saying that most rom-coms are trope-fests zested with clichés ahoy isn’t exactly controversial; hell, pointing that out is itself a bloody cliché at this point. I myself have made it a habit of pointing this shit out whenever I cover romance flicks, and the ones that I particularly gravitate towards like The Breaker Upperers and even Silver Linings Playbook actively subvert those same clichés. But even with that in mind, given my lukewarm reception to Rebel Wilson and Adam Devine, I wasn’t expecting all that much from this. But finally, it seems like they’re both attached to a project that knows how to fully utilise them.

Game Over, Man! (2018) - Movie Review

 

Oh goody, another bloody Die Hard clone. After what happened last time with Skyscraper, not to mention how listless so many of the others have been like Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, I should be outright dreading this. There’s only so many ways to do this story properly, and it seems like no-one working today has found any of them.

Or I would be saying that, were it not for the fact that this latest effort was courtesy of Point Grey Pictures, a studio I have come to rely on for some genuinely good comedy. From The Disaster Artist to the Bad Neighbours films, even Blockers from earlier this year, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg sure do know how to back the right productions. And quite honestly, this follows in that pattern.

When We First Met (2018) - Movie Review

Over the last handful of centuries, romantic comedies have become the sub-genre primed for mocking, containing all kinds of insipid clichés and story tropes that breed incessantly within it like the world’s least useful petri dish. Over the last handful years, time travel narratives have been in vogue, primarily those involving the lead character reliving the same event over and over again, trying to get it "right" and make everyone happy (or, more likely, just themselves). These two worlds have intersected before, like with last year’s Naked, but this is a truly harmonious synergy. A feat of filmmaking that manages to highlight the utter worst of both worlds to create a shining example of why this shit needs to stop.

Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) - Movie Review