Review: The Boss (2016)

I have been avoiding writing this review after hearing what people thought about The Boss but I love Melissa McCarthy and so I was still desperate to see it.

Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy) is a big shot gazillionaire running a large corporation but gets arrested for insider trading and sent to prison,  Once she is released, she has nothing and ends up on the doorstep to her assistants (Kristen Bell) apartments looking for somewhere to stay.  Ultimately, she ends up setting up a better version of the Dandelions cookie sales with Claire's brownies.

As you can tell from my horrific blurb, the plot is terrible and it doesn't improve as it goes on but it was funny.  I laughed a lot (I can't confirm 100% that this wasn't down to the glass of wine I had beforehand or that I was with my funniest friend!) and one scene made me laugh to the point I couldn't catch my breath.  I'm certain that this wouldn't hold up on a second viewing (unless I was tipsy again) and I'm pretty sure that now I know how the plot ends I would find the whole thing even more ridiculous.

I wanted so badly to like this movie. I loved Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy. When she's cast in a supporting role her loud and aggressive moments are hilarious, but given the lead role, it all gets too much for me. In fact, movies she's in turn into marmite for me, I either love them or hate them. I hated Identity Theft, hated Tammy, even St. Vincent which I know a lot of people loved. That left the score 3-3 until The Boss. You hated St Vincent?! But how?! All I even remember is she left her kid with a complete stranger for hours on end, and that alone annoyed me so much I stopped paying attention!

The trailer didn't sell the movie to me at all, in fact it was Jenna telling me about how much it made me laugh that got me to give it a chance. There was nothing funny about the opening scene, in fact the only time I really laughed was the bra moment, but I could stick it out for the brownie business, I wanted to see where that went. After a while I must have nodded off, because the next thing I remember was Melissa McCarthy and Peter Dinklage having a sword fight on the roof of a building. What?!

I'm struggling to rate this because the more I think about it the more I dislike it but when I watched it actually enjoyed it.  I certainly don't think this hits the comedy levels of McCarthy's collaborations with Paul Feig but I don't think much will.

The score was going to be 3-4 on my Melissa McCarthy movie, love it or hate it meter, but since writing this Ghostbusters has been released which I loved, leaving the score 4-4 now. Her next movie could go either way!

Review: Pixels (2015)

Gamer nerds, unite! Okay, that was a little lame, sorry. But seriously, I’m all in for a movie that celebrates being a gamer. It’s just taken me a while to get round to watching this one. When I first saw the trailer for Pixels, I though, this is one of those movies that’s going to be terrible, but a little bit awesome at the same time. As the terrible reviews flooded in, my enthusiasm died a little, but I still wanted to give it a chance.  I hadn't read any reviews so I had no idea what to expect....

Pixels (2015) starts off in the summer of 1982, and when a new arcade opens up in town, friends Brenner (Adam Sandler) and Cooper (Kevin James) race over to master the games. Whilst there they meet Ludlow (Josh Gad) who’s in love with Lady Lisa, the main star of the game Dojo Quest. After working his way through the ranks, Brenner goes head to head with Eddie (Peter Dinklage) in a game of Donkey Kong. The host announces that footage of the competition will be sent into space by NASA, and consequently, an alien race treats the footage as a declaration of war, and use video games to attack Earth.

It’s a pretty silly plot, there’s no moving around that one, but it’s a fun one at the very least! I would class myself as an Adam Sandler fan, but I enjoyed this a lot more than the last movies I saw of his, both Grown Ups. Admittedly, I think I’m just a few years too young to fully appreciate Pixels. I played Pacman and Donkey Kong, but remastered versions on early generation games consoles, and they were the only game characters I actually recognised. There’s definitely a lot of nostalgia here for 80’s gamers though!  I recognised more from watching Wreck it Ralph than from actual video games (I was more of a Barbie kid!!).  I will readily admit that I am a huge Adam Sandler fan and I to disagree with Allie on this one because Grown Ups (the first one) was awesome and this didn't even come into the same league (it was pretty much on par with Grown Ups 2 - Grown Ups 2 was horrendous, at least Pixels had a plot!).

The visuals were a pretty sight to see, and I reckon they would only be better on the big screen. The final Donkey Kong scene was nothing short of awesome, and even though the trailer already showed it, I loved the idea of using coloured Mini Cooper’s for Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde!  Agreed, the visuals were amazing and the Mini Coopers were great (but how did they know they were going to need them -just another of the little niggles that bothered me throughout!)

As much as I enjoyed this, it certainly wasn’t without it’s flaws. I lost interest in the plot several times, and a few of the characters got on my nerves a little. Why did Peter Dinklage have to put on a ‘douchebag’ voice throughout the entire movie? It just wasn’t necessary. Also, I realise the soundtrack was from the 80’s but the whole Centipede battle scene would have been 100x more awesome if it was backed by Knife Party’s Centipede. Look it up on YouTube, and please internet, make this happen for me. Oh, and spoiler alert, but if you’re going to cast Sean Bean in your movie, in a military role no less, kill him off! Wasted opportunity there, Sandler. YES! I know this film was completely unrealistic and unbelievable but I could not get my head around Kevin James being President, it was so irritating.

All in all, I was really disappointed, I wanted to love it but I just didn't!  It pushed the unrealistic too far and wasn't even remotely funny....at all! (that's hard for me to say about a Sandler film)

Not the best movie out there by a long shot, but give me Adam Sandler over James Franco any day! 

Disappointed in Mr Sandler...sort it out man!

12 Days of Christmas - Day 6 Elf (2003)

How can Christmas ever go by without watching this bit of movie gold.  I actually hated it the first time I watched it, but I learnt to love it for what it is. I had a funny experience seeing this in the cinema. It was my brother's 8th birthday and my Mum and I took him and a group of his friends. What's wrong with that you ask? It was the middle of January. To this date I don't know why it was still showing!

Buddy the Elf a normal sized human is raised in the North Pole as an Elf but his size wreaks havoc on the small community.  Soon he is sent to the US to find his real father but finds it harder to fit in, in the real world than he anticipated.

This is by far the silliest, most random, off the wall Christmas movie going but that is what I love about it.  You have to watch it with no expectations and try to switch your brain off completely so you just see the funny side of it all.  I'm not a huge Will Ferrell fan, in fact I usually hate films he is in (don't shout at me but I really dislike Anchorman, I think its massively overrated and not in the least bit funny!) but this tugs on my Christmassy heart strings and some of the one liners in it are amazing. "Santa's Coming? I know him" probably more about how it's said than the actual lines haha!

I love Will Ferrell already, but it's definitely the over the top 'ness' of it all that makes Elf so funny. It's so quotable as well, I really can't help but shout 'I know him!' when the name Santa is mentioned!

The story is ok, but it is overshadowed by Ferrell's overpowering verbal and physical comedy, much of the time the story is forgotten over an elaborate comedy sketch.  For me, that may be what makes it likeable, it's extremely easy to watch, you don't even really need to follow the story just enjoy gag after gag.  The escalator scene being my personal favourite:

Not the greatest story on Earth but certainly an entertaining jaunt perfect for watching while wrapping presents or with family (safe for kids as well as Dad, the train and planes!)

This is one of my personal favourites and I hope I can find to watch it this year before the big day!