Comedy, Reviews, Eddie Harrison
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The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
13 Mar 2013
Laughs are lacking in this tale of rival Vegas magicians, starring Steve Carell and Jim Carrey
After competing dramas about competing magicians (The Prestige and The Illusionist) comes the same idea played for broad laughs. Given that Vegas-style showmanship is ridiculously campy anyway, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has a large…
Identity Thief
12 Mar 2013
Solid comedy road movie with Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman
‘You follow the rules? How’s that workin’ out for you?’ bawls Melissa McCarthy’s shameless criminal when straight-laced accountant Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) catches up with her free-spending ways with his money. Seth Gordon’s follow up to…
The Guilt Trip
4 Mar 2013
Heartfelt mother-son road trip movie starring Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen
Teaming Barbra Streisand with Seth Rogen promises a road trip worth avoiding; setting the diva who produced and starred in a slew of vanity projects including The Prince of Tides and The Mirror As Two Faces opposite the shambolic stoner from Knocked Up…
Grabbers
21 Dec 2012
A contrived, one-note sci-fi horror comedy in which a community stays drunk to repel an alien attack
In Grabbers, an interplanetary invasion of earth can potentially be foiled, not by the fighting spirit of the human race, but due to the aversion of the aliens to drinking blood contaminated by alcohol. It’s a situation which forces the inhabitants of a…
Pitch Perfect
17 Dec 2012
A surprisingly smart take on the potentially clichéd 'songs & starlets' material
While the Glee concert movie proved to be a surprise flop last year, the idea of packaging up chart songs and glamorous teenage starlets has been a Hollywood trope since the advent of sound. The latest effort, Pitch Perfect, is a simple enough piece of…
Mental
19 Nov 2012
Toni Collette shines in PJ Hogan's comedy tackling mental health issues
Muriel’s Wedding launched writer/director PJ Hogan onto a stuttering Hollywood career, but after the bland confection of Confessions of a Shopaholic, Hogan has returned to his native Australia. Mental is an outrageous comedy reuniting him with his…
Here Comes The Boom
5 Nov 2012
Undemanding comedy set in the world of mixed martial arts, starring Kevin James
A mixed-martial arts comedy from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production line, and taking its title from the chorus of a raucous song by nu metal band P.O.D., Frank Coraci’s film doesn’t have the pedigree to inspire much confidence. But Coraci, the…
Fun Size
30 Oct 2012
Tween Hallowe'en comedy that never delivers on its promise of its weak premise
After the recent death of Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, the band announced that they would not license their music for use in adverts. Presumably the crassest of teen comedies are a more acceptable medium, as Fun Size’s lamentable climax involves their…
Excision
29 Oct 2012
Gore-filled black comedy for those with strong stomachs
A blood-drenched slice of menstrual angst, first time writer/director Richard Bates Jr’s horror film, based on his own 2008 short, is most certainly not for the squeamish. A coming of age drama studded with hallucinatory imagery, it opens with a gushing…
For a Good Time, Call...
9 Oct 2012
Substandard comedy starring Lauren Miller and Ari Gaynor
The mild hilarity of two good-hearted girls struggling to make a living in the grimy world of phone-sex provides the unpromisingly twee premise of Jamie Travis’s forgettable For A Good Time Call…, a comedy presumably funded as a goodwill vehicle for…
Hit and Run
6 Sep 2012
Bland action comedy from Hollywood star Dax Shepard
The personable star of TV show Parenthood, Hollywood hunk Dax Shepard bites off more than he can chew in Hit and Run, writing, co-directing (with David Palmer) and starring in a lightweight action movie sporting wilfully loquacious dialogue á la Quentin…
That’s My Boy
3 Sep 2012
A mean-spirited, one-gag comedy from Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg
It’s no laughing matter that fewer comedies are scheduled for release in 2012 than ever before. While this summer’s Ted demonstrated the genre could still score substantial breakout success, Adam Sandler’s ear for laughs has turned from gold to tin…
Jackpot
1 Aug 2012
Second Jo Nesbo adaptation once again gleefully mixes comedy and gory violence
The Jo Nesbo phenomenon shifted from publishing to cinema with the unexpected box-office and critical success of this year’s art-crime drama Headhunters. Following quickly on its heels, director Magnus Martens has adapted an original story by Nesbo to…
The Five Year Engagement
12 Jun 2012
A lack of comedy lets down an unexpectedly truthful treatment of romance
Following in the footsteps of last year’s excellent Bridesmaids, The Five Year Engagement is the latest romantic comedy from the seemingly endless Judd Apatow production line. Reuniting the Forgetting Sarah Marshall team of writer/director Nicolas…
What To Expect When You’re Expecting
23 May 2012
A witless and bland work based on the pregnancy self-help book
‘You don’t know what love is until you’ve wiped someone’s ass,’ offers one of the many baby-boomers in Kirk (Waking Ned, Everybody’s Fine) Jones’ multi-stranded adaptation of the bestselling self-help book about the dos and don’ts of pregnancy.
Casa de mi Padre
11 May 2012
Will Ferrell's Spanish-language comedy is at once unfunny and too silly to take seriously
Funnyman Will Ferrell as a tough rancher in a violent Spanish-language Western? It could only be a joke, and that’s exactly what Case de mi Padre is, a ragged, silly spoof in the Airplane/Naked Gun mode. Unfortunately, as jokes go, it’s a not…
Outside Bet
18 Apr 2012
Low-budget British horse-racing comedy falls at the first hurdle
(12A) 101mins The cinematic equivalent of the clumps of horse dung that characters repeatedly step into for the cheapest of laughs, Outside Bet is strictly a non-runner in terms of light entertainment. In this painfully naïve British comedy, Bob…
The Sitter
5 Jan 2012
Zippy but unappealing sub-Apatow comedy starring Jonah Hill
(15) 81min After springing to stardom in Superbad, Jonah Hill gets his first lead role in The Sitter, an amiable low-brow comedy from director David Gordon Green which throws Hill’s laid-back slacker persona into a similar underworld of criminal…
Monte Carlo
12 Oct 2011
Flat romcom vehicle for Justin Bieber's paramour Selena Gomez
(PG) 108min The star of tween drama Wizards of Waverly Place, but better known as the current squeeze of Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez is being relentlessly packaged for fame. Her previous venture, last year’s Ramona and Beezus sank like a stone, and…
Friends with Benefits
19 Aug 2011
Sappy rom-com fails to deflate clichés of the genre
(15) 109min The rom-com has been a moribund genre for years now, excepting Marc Webb’s acerbic and adventurous (500) Days of Summer. Despite promising a similarly caustic examination of the gap between real-life relationships and romantic clichés…
Arrietty
13 Jul 2011
Studio Ghibli takes on The Borrowers and delivers charming results
(U) 94min Over three decades, the Studio Ghibli brand of animated storytelling has become a worldwide phenomenon through beloved classics My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and the recent Ponyo. Although not directed by the studio’s co-founder Hayao…
Horrible Bosses
13 Jul 2011
Seth Gordon's comedy rides high with the titular bosses, but is let down by their minions
(15) 97min The blunt title of Seth Gordon’s star-packed comedy might lack finesse but it is certainly accurate: Horrible Bosses features three utterly repulsive Los Angeles-based line managers as its villains. Dr Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston) is…
Cars 2
13 Jul 2011
Uninspired sequel fails to keep the Pixar engine running
(U) 112min After 25 years of animation production and a run of critical and commercial smash-hits, the super-smooth Pixar production line finally blows a gasket with Cars 2, a colourful but overstuffed, noisy and heartless sequel that feels more like…
Prom
23 May 2011
Disney comedy is bland and generic tween fluff, starring Aimee Teegarden and Thomas McDonell
(U) 103min After the huge success of the High School Musical franchise, Disney have been quick to cash in on the teen genre, and Prom is based on another event from the school calendar upon which it hangs a familiar story. But despite the assured…
No Strings Attached - Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher in casual sexual relationship
18 Feb 2011
Ivan Reitman's sweet-and-sour confection coasts by on personable leads
(15) 107min The moribund romcom genre emits a shrill death-rattle in No Strings Attached, in which Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher play friends who find themselves in a casual sexual relationship, only to find that there are always strings…
