JUST GO WITH IT- Review

From R-L: Twat, Twat, Surprisingly Good

Consulting the IMDB, I realised today that before Just Go with It, the last time I saw a Jennifer Aniston film at the cinema was The Break Up, all the way back in 2006. For Adam Sandler, same story (save for a Funny People shaped blip) with Click. After seeing Just Go with It, I realise I haven't particularly missed either of them.

Sandler plays Danny, a man-whore plastic surgeon, and Aniston plays Katherine, his hard-working secretary. Danny's trademark ploy with women is to wear a fake wedding ring and pretend that he's in a deeply unhappy marriage in order to get laid. When the ring messes up his chances with a woman he has something more than utter contempt for, maths teacher Palmer, he constructs an elaborate web of lies to cover his mistake, pulling in Katherine and her two kids.

After an experience like this, I often find myself looking for someone to blame. Forgoing Adam Sandler, who should know better after sending himself up so richly in Funny People, and Jennifer Aniston, who is surprisingly the best thing about this film by far, then the prime suspect is Dennis Dugan. He's a frequent collaborator with Sandler, and he's been likened to a neutron bomb to comedy. But then you look at the screenplay credits, and you find Allan Loeb. Loeeeeb!

This man, who reduces me to fits of Shatner-esque screaming rage, has had two credits in the last 12 months that particularly stand out to me. First, on last year's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which subsisted upon risible dialogue like "Greed got greedier." More recently, there's The Dilemma, which somehow subsisted on being fucking awful. If this seems unreasonable, that's because I review films, but Loeb's now been involved in three films I really hated. Focusing on this minute bit of trivia, he's my new nemesis.

I hate to call children Twats, but I will say that there's more than one Twat in this picture.

At his door, I lie most of the blame for the repulsive waste that is Just Go with It, because it exploits an audience's willing suspension of disbelief beyond endurance, just like The Dilemma did. As with that film, I thought of a simple solution to all of the conflict within the film that would have worked just ten minutes in, without us having to be subjected to the following 106 minutes. Instead, no one thinks of my perfectly workable solution of pretending to be married to avoid getting hit on by women who want to shag a plastic surgeon, and so the stakes build up like an enormous Jenga tower made out of Twats.

Sandler's character, as so many of his characters are nowadays, is an capital-T Twat. He's clearly capable of better if Punch-Drunk Love and, yes, even Funny People demonstrated, but he's using his star power for evil these days, it seems. Let's look at some of the other characters' backgrounds- Palmer is a maths teacher. Now, Palmer is played by model Brooklyn Decker, and the film objectifies her just as much as the marketing. No matter how much her character's stupidity is played up, we saw her being a maths teacher, so that's acceptable- she's just a silly woman, after all, right?

Jennifer Aniston, though trying her best with the awful detritus she's given, is even more marginalised and trodden upon during the proceedings, being utterly passive and apparently wearing glasses that made her look so dowdy that nobody noticed until she takes them off that she's actually, well, Jennifer Aniston. Then there's the "comedy" cousin, the "comedy" disfigured plastic surgery patient and the obligatory precocious little twats, one of whom adopts the most grating British accent imaginable because it's a "cute character quirk" that actually makes a real life American version of Battle Royale seem a more endearing concept.

Something happened while I was watching this film that never, ever happens. Something happened that so insulted my intelligence that I had to actually walk out of the screening to gather myself for a minute. It's a joke about a sheep. If you've seen it, I'm talking about the call back, not the first instance. This highlight of comic genius is heralded by the clunkiest set-up ever, delivered by a wooden actress, and it pushed my endurance beyond limits. I returned a minute or so later, but it's a first for me. Shit often stinks so much that I hold my nose, but it's rarely so offensive that I can't even look at it.

How many laughs did it raise? Just one, at a visual gag that would be a minor highlight in another film. That gives a ratio between minutes of screen time and funny jokes of 116 to one. There's no type of bad film I hate more than a bad comedy. Did I mention that this film is far, far too fucking long? I think I've already given the impression that it's effluvient self-indulgence of the basest kind, but it's the amount of time it wastes that really grinds my gears. 116 minutes is too long and yet still apparently not long enough to actually bring a conclusion to the leaning tower of a narrative, which is explained away in a narrated montage in the last two minutes of the film.

"Why can't you be a Twat like the rest of us?"

Weirdly, my new nemesis Allan Loeb has compensated for his earlier efforts on The Dilemma in penning Just Go with It, a film that's even worse! It's so bad that it makes you yearn for The Dilemma, even though it's only marginally less shit. He cannot be allowed to go on doing this- watching this film already feels like your brain is being deprived of oxygen for almost two hours. Blame could be assigned elsewhere, but it's the genuinely horrible script that really puts this film through the bottom of the barrel. The queasiest and most abominable kind of film.

Just Go with It is now showing in cinemas nationwide,
------------------------------------------------------------------
If you've seen Just Go with It, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

It's Quiet... Too Quiet...

I'm given to rather negatively assume that you're all browsing this blog o' mine to read me positively losing my shit over the latest releases. Then you'll go to the multiplex to chortle a little at the minutiae that bothered me so much and have a thoroughly good night. And good for you if that's the fact, but I find myself in the enjoyable position recently of being able to recommend films. Inglourious Basterds and The Time Traveler's Wife are both still playing in cinemas and are both rather marvellous, and it's a pleasure to recommend two rather different films. The trend continues with this week's post, and I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

By avoiding the route of seeing Dance Flick and Aliens in the Attic just to give hopping mad deconstructions of them on here, I've found my cinema-going experiences to be much more pleasant of late, probably because the summer season is drawing to a close, and the more stupid of the money-scoffing tyrannosauruses in the cinematic arena have all gone to shit in the wake of the flaming astral fireball that is er... September. Analogies have not always been my strong suit, but I'd sooner be happy than right any day. So here are a couple more reviews in which, as ever, mild spoilers may occur in the course of discussion but not so far as to ruin major plot developments.



Funny People is the latest comedy from Judd Apatow, a director who's slightly less prolific than advertising would have you believe. Yeah, he's the guy who brought you Knocked Up, but that and The 40 Year Old Virgin are the only films he'd directed before this more personal and dramatic effort. Adam Sandler reprises the "serious-mode" acting we've seen done well in Punch-Drunk Love and less well in Spanglish, to play George Simmons, a stand-up comedian turned sell-out movie star who's diagnosed with an inoperable type of leukaemia. Realising that his days could well be numbered, he reassesses his decadent lifestyle with the help of a young fan called Ira (played by Seth Rogen), who he effectively hires as an emotional punchbag.

Apatow's primarily telling us that Adam Sandler is very lonely. While I doubt Sandler has the personal issues that George does in real life, his career path is remarkably similar. I'm not pretending that Sandler's comedies have ever been high art, but I certainly think Happy Gilmore was a more credible film than the likes of Bedtime Stories. Similarly, George's efforts include Merman (a children's film about... well, a merman), Redo (in which Simmons has to be turned into a baby by a wizard to learn what it is to be a man) and My Best Friend Is A Robot (an Owen Wilson comedy that's never really elaborated upon). It's in this type of self-consciousness that Sandler gives such a good performance, amply reinforced by Apatow's traditional supporting cast.

Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann are as sympathetic and funny as usual, but it was a real joy to see Jonah Hill being funny again. Ever since Superbad, he's been touted as the Next Big Thing, but he's only really made forgettable cameos in the likes of Night at the Museum 2 since then. Here, he's given a sizable role with some great one-liners. Eric Bana is another standout cast-member who really doesn't seem to be on-screen long enough as he reprises his native accent to play an Australian alpha-male, but that's a problem that only exists because he makes such an impression. The amount of time he's there is relative to his importance to the story, and that's where Funny People really succeeds- a film the same length as your average Harry Potter film will invariably either bore the audience or use the time well and flesh out story and characters. You'll find yourself caring about what happens to these characters without it becoming mawkish or melodramatic.

The trademark quickfire dialogue and one-liners remain, but this is much more of a marriage of comedy and drama than Apatow's previous films. Like Knocked Up did for unexpected pregnancy and The 40 Year Old Virgin did for sexual immaturity, this film does take on a subject that isn't funny- terminal illness- and centres a comedy around it. However, unlike those films, Apatow is prepared to put a straight face on things for most of the film. The characters are stand-up comedians, so there'll obviously be jokes, but Funny People is a film about how damaged they can be once they're off-stage. Two and a half hours more or less flies by, with the exception of how frequently dick-jokes occur. By the time you hear how thick Seth Rogen's penis apparently is for the twelfth time, you might cast a look at your watch. Nevertheless, the fact remains that this is sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always very human, and it's Apatow's best film to date. That doesn't mean it's his funniest, but it is very good indeed.



It's likely many of you will go see Funny People, so I'll tip the scale and talk about a film I know was mostly overlooked at the cinema because it came out on the same day as The Time Traveler's Wife and the same weekend that Inglourious Basterds started previewing. It's called A Perfect Getaway and it stars Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich as Cliff and Cydney, a pair of newlyweds off on an idyllic Hawaiian honeymoon. The getaway is marred slightly by news of a savage murderer roaming the islands, and it's only after they meet another holidaying couple that they hear about how police believe a man and a woman were the perpetrators. It's directed by David Twohy, who hasn't really done anything in the past few years except talk about how he's going to make a third Riddick film. That project now looks to be finally going forward, and fair play to him, because his interim project is well worth a watch.

Twohy's writing and directing maintains the tension throughout, and by the time you get to the end, you'll want to watch it again right away so you can get your head around it. It would be unfair to reveal any of the plot developments that make the film so watchable, or to divulge the game-changer that occurs midway through. So it only really remains for me to praise Twohy's direction and recommend A Perfect Getaway to anyone who likes a good thriller. It's got great performances- this is the only film where I'd ever call Steve Zahn endearing, and there's a memorable turn by Timothy Olyphant too- and the requisite scenery is of course beautifully shot. The real shame with this film is how it's been advertised. I'm lucky to have seen this at all, because every other day of the week I would've passed this by as another run-of-the-mill cautionary tale about how going abroad is Bad, no matter how sunny it is. As it is, I felt like a trip to the cinema and saw this on a whim, so I'm very glad I did. Make sure you all catch it on DVD, because it's a film that deserves to be more successful than it has been.

Next time, I'll probably be back to ranting when it comes to Final Destination 4 (I refuse to use the title they're giving it) but hopefully retaining this newfound sunny disposition when it comes to either The Hurt Locker, District 9 or (500) Days of Summer.

Until then, I'm Mark, mad prophet of the airwaves, and make sure you don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.