Tag: comedy

‘Instant Family’ is about Pete (Wahlberg) and Ellie (Byrne) who want a family but aren’t exactly young. They’ve both had a lot of fun and experience in their lives, lives they’ve lived very well mind you, and have a lot to offer. They have a great business and a beautiful home but look around one day and realize they have no one to share it with. With this acknowledgment, they’re suddenly struck with an idea. At their age, instead of having a baby, they decide to adopt. This is also the true tale of where the narrative was born.

The film is an important take on children, both young and old, in the country’s foster system. I applaud its good intentions but it’s full of contrived jokes that feel labored rather than spontaneous. I do like the story behind the story as much as I enjoyed watching what foster parents Pete and Ellie felt compelled to do but the movie was somewhat excessive at times.

Based on their own experiences with adoption writers Sean Anders and John Morris want you to know the truth of things. They want you to see that teenagers are neglected by people looking to adopt. Unfortunately, more often than not, this leads to building resentments. Their attitudes grow bitter and a teenager in the system will find it harder to be placed somewhere they can call home.

This effort is more than admirable. Nonetheless, Anders and Morris went overboard and stuffed everything they went through or witnessed into one film. The movie is respectable, but this wasn’t necessary for the audience to pick up on their message, leading to it being a lot to take in at times. Another miscalculation from the team was slapping into the script pranks and antics to force the comedic side of awkward moments with their new family. The sillier things became made genuine moments feel phony.

Pete and Ellie adopt a teenager, Lizzie (Moner), who comes with two young siblings named Lita and Juan. Lizzie is your typical angst-filled fifteen-year-old but put in this position has taken on the role of mama bear to the younger cubs. Shifting from home to home, with bags full of ‘court bears,’ she doesn’t believe, or is incapable of believing, she’ll ever be loved. She likes Pete and Ellie, sees how lucky she is, but has been disappointed before. Lizzie has been hurt so often that she won’t allow Lita and Juan to go through it, too, so she creates barriers in the guise of being helpful… at first. Then she drops the charm. When she shows her guarded side, Pete and Ellie almost give up but, coming to terms with the fact that being parents isn’t easy, they resist the urge to send the children back.

Sadly, they have the added pressure of competing with their real mother who shows up when it’s most convenient for her. Of course, you were expecting this to happen, but it is moving when it does. That said, it’s mostly because of Moner’s performance more than anything else. For a brief moment, you see her heart. The biggest highlights of the film come from its smallest moments. At its most basic and what Anders fixates on the least, is when the film is at its best.

You’ll love performances from Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro as their counselors. Bringing in Margo Martindale and Julie Hagerty as dueling grandmothers was a nice touch, you’ll appreciate. However, Anders goes too far with a good thing with adding Joan Cusack’s nosey neighbor. Her character starts out well but ends with you shaking your head. ‘Instant Family’ is ultimately worth watching but paying matinee price is best for you and yours. 

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‘The Long Dumb Road,’ a buddy comedy, has poor Nathan or ‘Nat’ (Revolori) in a pickle from the very beginning. Nat is a young naïve photographer on his way to give it a go in L.A. via art school. He doesn’t know how to say the word no, which gets him into trouble when he meets Richard (Mantzoukas) who wouldn’t take no for an answer in the first place.

Nat’s car breaks down right at the same moment this trashy, grungy, unkempt, mess of a mechanic is losing his job. This is the perfect set up for your typical on the road indie-comedy and though common-place, at least its stars aren’t. Luckily, the pair both need what the other has in that Nat needs his car to get going and Richard needs to be driven somewhere. Where it is Richard needs to go becomes less and less clear as the road grows further behind them. He tells Nat he only needs a ride forty-five miles up the road. That forty-five miles turns into his being Nat’s buddy on this trip across the country. Though often frustrated with being taken advantage of, Nat gets what he needs from Richard, too. Without him, he’d never get the fatherly advice about sex Richard freely gives or get to experiment with drugs for the first time. Of course, he’d probably not get into the trouble Richard seems to draw to him either.

Nat has lived a very sheltered existence and finds it easy to blossom shadowing his new extremely extroverted companion. Nat has, up until now, been capturing life through his camera lens and is happy to be finally getting into the action yet is still very timid. Richard wants to crack the foundation Nat has built for himself by ‘ripping the condom off’ his mind. Revealing very little about who he really is, Richard doesn’t want to be put under the microscope but gives enough away to show that he does have a softer side. He’s critical of himself, worried he’s aging and that he’s ugly. He also admits that there’s a girl from high school that he’s never gotten over. This little sidetrack becomes one of the biggest mistakes in the film. Quite frankly the aforementioned revelations make you look at Richard’s character differently. As it grows from loser to invaluable trailblazer with crucial guidance, his very essence no longer makes sense. This is especially the case if he’s suddenly a simple-minded dolt. Some of the more outrageous parts of the script are based on the Richard we first meet and does not gel with the Richard we see toward the end. The comedy is intact but the loyalty to the part is lost. While Richard becomes more of a buffoon, the role turns the audience off from what they liked about him in the first place. However, the real Richard does show up again at the very end making you almost forgive the error.

The generation gap between the two is the most developed and most impressively explored part of the journey. They’re both student and scholar on the road to wherever life takes them at this point. It’s sometimes entertaining, sometimes implausible like when they decide to, out of nowhere, visit the woman Richard never got over. She, not even remembering him, lets him into her house? Not likely to happen, nor is this necessary.  ‘The Long Dumb Road’ has some fabulous cameos, amusing dialogue and some lively characters that move in and out but nothing good stays for very long. There just isn’t enough gas in the tank to get you from point A to point B without you wanting to get up and wander off on occasion. It’s a bit too absurd to be believed at times but the jokes that hit their target and the performances do save it from a don’t see to a watch at home.

“Johnny English Strikes Again” is a sequel in the “Johnny English” series, with Rowan Atkinson as an MI7 spy. He is the most bumbling and ill-prepared secret agent ever. He does little that is right, but he always thinks he is top of the line. English is similar to the inept Inspector Clouseau from the ‘Pink Panther’ movies. Peter Sellers was perfect for those movies, and Rowan Atkinson is pretty much the arrow in the bullseye for “Johnny English”. It’s just that the humor in the 60’s was fine for its time. But today, audiences do expect a little bit other than pratfalls and big-eared goofy grins.

Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is brought back into MI7 service after a technical data hack on the bureau. All current spies have been exposed and the Prime Minister (Emma Thompson) is upset. The country is undergoing several mysterious data hacks, and things are not good for the British Empire. The Prime Minister thinks that perhaps a young tech-savvy billionaire named Jason Volta (Jake Lacy) can get the country running smoothly again. English is the only retired field agent who can be called upon to investigate. He also gets an assist with his old MI7 friend named Angus Bough (Ben Miller). For some reason, English pronounces Bough as ‘Boof’. These two get sent to check out the computer hacks, first in France.

Johhny and ‘Boof’ find out that a luxury sailing yacht named the “Dot Calm” had something to do with the British data hack. They also meet up with a beautiful woman named Ophelia (Olga Kurylenko) on the yacht. She knows that boat belongs to billionaire Jason Volta, and she is looking into why he wants to make a business deal with the Prime Minister. When Johnny and Boof pretend to be waiters at a fancy French resort, there is a total disaster in the making. Ophelia heads to England to track Volta, so Johnny and Boof also go back home.

Johnny English has a feeling that Volta might be up to something very bad. But the Prime Minister is all smiles about Volta, and she will not disavow him. Johnny and Boof have a ‘Virtual Reality’ mock-up of Volta’s English country estate. Johnny uses this VR device to learn how to maneuver Volta’s estate to find evidence of his wrong-doing. However, Johnny does everything wrong (as usual) and thinks he is in the VR lab when he is actually out in the London bookstores and coffee shops – attacking people who are Volta’s “Heanchmen”. He and Boof go to estate for real, and they do find evidence that Volta is evil. They work with Ophelia to record Volta’s evil plans, but of course, Johnny messes that up when he tries to play it for the Prime Minister.

Johnny and Boof are fired and need to stay away from the big conference in Scotland, where the Prime Minister and Jason Volta will sign a big agreement. All the other European countries will also join in, because Volta promises to protect all their data. They of course do not know that Volta has been behind all of the data hacks and is leading up to taking over the various countries. If Johnny and Boof only were able to be there and effectively protect England and all of Europe. If only they could work with Ophelia, who is an undercover Russian agent, to stop Volta from being an evil jerk. If only– but wait — of course Johnny English will blunder into a situation and somehow make the ‘not the worst thing’ happen. If only — by accident…

“Johnny English Strikes Again” shows that Rowan Atkinson does not strike out, but he also does not hit any home runs. Call this one a broken-bat single. Atkinson is terrific at what he does, which is to play the unknowing fool. The rest of the cast enjoys slumming around with him, especially Emma Thompson. The story is a series of set pieces, all tied together with Atkinson basic goofy character. There is some humor to be found, but it does not sustain the entire run time. But there is nothing objectionable, so Grandmums can watch it with their wee laddie grandsons.