Tag Archives: Adam DeVine

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Phone Shaming

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Jexi

by Hope Madden

Jexi is the Captain Obvious of comedies.

We’re on our phones too much. We’re failing to take in the beauty around us. We’re not making human connections. We’re more comfortable isolating ourselves. The online world we create is false and sad.

Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the insightful filmmaking team skewering society with cultural commentaries like Bad Moms and Bad Moms Christmas, wants to help you see the absurdity of living this phone-dependent life. They drag poor Adam Devine, Alexandra Shipp and Rose Byrne down with them.

Devine is socially isolated Phil—good guy, smart, but incredibly uncomfortable socially. He’d rather cozy up afterwork with take-out and Netflix, all of it brought up via voice commands. Then he meets gorgeous Cate (Shipp) who works with her hands, likes the outdoors, owns a brick-and-mortar shop and finds Phil’s cowardly self-deprecation charming. He’s so distracted he breaks his phone.

The defective operating system on the new phone promptly ruins his life, thereby setting him free. Jexi is like Spike Jonze’s 2013 masterpiece Her, only dumb.

Devine gives his all to a minor twist on his familiar character, the lovable dumbass. As the lead in the film, his edges are softened this go-round, and he settles into a nicely amiable schlub you can root for. Shipp doesn’t get to do much beyond be the girl you wish you were or you wish you were dating, but Byrne delivers some laughs.

Rose Byrne is one of the most reliable comic actors working today. Here she’s basically a jealous, controlling, psychotic Siri and her deadpan delivery is priceless. It’s just not enough to salvage the film.

Get off your phones. Kiss a girl. Ride a bike.

Duh.

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We Can’t Quit You, Rom-Com!

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Isn’t It Romantic

by George Wolf

Every time someone on your social media thread pokes fun at the latest Hallmark Christmas special, you can get some pretty good odds they set the DVR to record it.

Isn’t It Romantic is all about indulging those guilty pleasures, laughing with friends as we all point out the reasons we shouldn’t love something that we’re going to keep on loving anyway.

Romantic comedies, why can’t we quit you?

Natalie (Rebel Wilson) is a low-level architect at a NYC firm who chastises her co-worker Whitney (Betty Gilpin) about her love for predictable rom-coms like Notting Hill and 50 First Dates. As Whitney watches yet another one on company time, Natalie wags a finger and reminds us all of the romantic comedy playbook she’s soon to act out.

Fighting with a would-be purse snatcher, Natalie is knocked unconscious, only to awaken in a strange new world.

She’s glowing with full makeup in a lavish E.R., where sexy doctors are available at a moment’s notice and there’s voiceover narration for Natalie’s inner conflicts.

This can only mean one thing: Natalie’s living in a rom-com!

The screenwriting team has plenty of experience in the genre (How to Be Single, The Wedding Date, What Happens in Vegas), and rolls out the tropes with fun, familiar ease. Natalie is instantly pursued by the rich, handsome Blake (Liam Hemsworth) while her friend-zoned buddy Josh (Adam DeVine) hooks up with supermodel/”yoga ambassador” Isabella (Priyanka Chopra) and best pal Whitney suddenly becomes an office nemesis.

Gay sidekick? Of course, honey! It’s neighbor Donny, who shows up at inexplicable moments and is brought to scene-stealing life by Brandon Scott Jones.

“How did you get here??”

“I just said ‘Gay Beetlejuice’ three times and here I am, Booch!”

Wilson, usually adept at scene-stealing herself, seems a bit uneasy in the lead, as her supporting actors all manage to make solid impressions while she struggles to find a confident tone.

Credit director Todd Strauss-Schulson for a finely whimsical pace, pop-up music montages that pop, and plenty of subtle backgrounds that reinforce the wink-winks (there’s a cute little cupcake store on every corner!)

While never hilarious, Isn’t It Romantic manages consistent charm and an effective running gag about keeping it all PG-13. Everybody knows you know how it ends and that’s the point, right? Here comes another musical number!

Hey, if you want rom-com critique with bite, revisit Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon. If you’re fine pleading guilty to the pleasure, Isn’t It Romantic will be plenty enjoyable.

 

 





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Altar Boys

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Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

by Hope Madden

Back in 2012, Aubrey Plaza starred in an eccentric little SciFi adventure based on a Craigslist ad. Safety Not Guaranteed was a surprised (and welcome) hit, partly because of writer Derek Connelly’s fertile imagination, partly because of the genuinely bizarre ad: Wanted: Somebody to go back in time. This is no joke. You’ll get paid after. Bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have done this once before.

That is ripe.

Since then, two all-American bros took to Craigslist to get dates to a wedding they were forbidden to attend stag for fear they would harass all the female guests and become generally unruly. That particular ad has already been milked of every conceivable bit of interest, with TV spots AND a book. A book! And yet, Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien (writers behind the Neighbors franchise) have adapted the ad for the new film Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

It also stars Plaza, alongside Anna Kendrick, Zac Efron and Adam Devine as the destination-wedding-bound foursome.

Jake Szymanski directs the raunchy comedy that pits two lovable losers trapped in their never ending adolescence against the equally immature but more scheming young women just looking for a free trip to Hawaii.

Efron and Plaza co-starred in the very-R comedy Dirty Grandpa earlier this year, with Devine and Kendrick sharing the screen in both Pitch Perfect films. The four of them are likeable and – to varying degrees – talented. They’d have to be comedic lightning bolts to get this off the ground, though.

With a plot this thin, the film has to lean too heavily on shock situations and over-the-top language to generate any energy. Expect moms to call sons “assholes,” sisters to bare some pelt, and Aubrey Plaza to demonstrate sexual technique using texting as the metaphor.

The cast offsets the raunch with character earnestness (except for Plaza, who’s all in), but the film always feels too slapped together to hold water and a bit to mean-spirited to merit more than a smile here and there.

The whole thing is so thin, so desperate for content, it’s as if some idiot based an entire screenplay on a 400 word Craigslist ad.

Verdict-2-0-Stars





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God Save the (Scream) Queen

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The Final Girls

by Hope Madden

Part of the satisfying lull of a slasher film is its predictability: idiotic characters behave lasciviously and are repaid for their indignities with the hard justice of a machete. They are scary movies for people who don’t really want to be scared, they’d rather enjoy the idiocy.

People like, I think we can assume, co-writers M. A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller, whose The Final Girls celebrates the genre and its fans with a meta-flick brimming with genre affection and upbeat carnage.

Max (Taissa Farmiga) never really got over the loss of her mother, scream queen Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman). She and her friends find themselves pulled into Mom’s most famous film – the ‘80s slasher Camp Bloodbath – and need to use their knowledge of slasher conventions to survive.

The film is far more a comedy than a horror flick – the casting of Adam DeVine (Workaholics) alone clarifies that. But don’t expect a spoof or cynical parody. There’s real love for the ironic pleasures of the genre that keeps the film lighthearted and fresh.

Director Todd Strauss-Schulson deconstructs the overly familiar genre, replacing its mean spirit with broad strokes of goofiness. He and his cast see these characters as something one-dimensional, but still worthwhile – rather than presenting them as simply the ingredients for Camp Counselor Slurry.

Supporting work from DeVine, Tom Middleditch, Angela Trimbur, and Alia Shawkat freshens up the predictability with sharp, spontaneous comedy that elevates the film above its clever gimmick.

The film shoehorns in some emotion as well, but it’s at its best when reveling in the familiar. Farmiga is saddled with the least playful, mostly humorless role, but her dour presence is offset by the fun lunacy around her.

There are flat spots, and the film is never the laugh riot of other recent horror comedies (Deathgasm, for instance), but it is a spot-on send up that entertains throughout.

Verdict-3-5-Stars





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The Pitch is Back

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Pitch Perfect 2

by Hope Madden

In 2012, Elizabeth Banks produced a film that was “an inspiration to girls all over the country too ugly to be cheerleaders.” And now it’s time to return to Barton University to get our accompaniment-free groove on in Pitch Perfect 2.

That’s right, pitches.

The Barton Bellas, having survived power struggles, forbidden romance and intimacy issues, have been the reigning collegiate a cappella champs for 3 years. However, an a cappella-tastrophe during a command performance at the Lincoln Center stripped the group of their title, and their only way to get it back is to become the first Americans to win the World Competition.

To do it, they’ll have to beat the Germans. Just like Rocky, but with singing … and comedy that’s intentional.

Banks returns in her role as one half of a bedecked competition commentator duo, opposite the endlessly hilarious John Michael Higgins. While their hysterical banter punctuates the proceedings, Banks also directs this time around. She shows as strong a sense of comic timing behind the camera as she has always shown in front of it, but really impresses when staging the musical numbers.

The game cast returns for seconds, with a dry, self-deprecating Anna Kendrick leading up the singing sisterhood. Rebel Wilson and Adam DeVine are back, ensuring plenty of uncomfortable lunacy, while a stable of fun cameos including David Cross, Jason Jones and Keegan-Michael Key keeps scenes fresh and funny.

I’m no Green Bay Packers fan, but it’s a lot of fun watching Clay Matthews and most of their offensive line sing Bootilicious.

Plenty of bits feel stale, too. As with any sequel, the novelty is gone and certain jokes have more than run their course by now. The storyline is a bit too predictable and tidy, the new characters are not compelling, and now and again Banks returns to a gag once too often.

Still, Kendrick is a solid foundation. She’s a talented comic performer who sings remarkably well, so a good place to build your movie. Kay Cannon’s script balances silliness, raunch and heart quite well, and those folks looking for lots of exceptionally choreographed numbers won’t be disappointed.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars