Mini Reviews: The Driftless Area (2016), Mojave (2016) & Central Intelligence (2016)

As the middle of the year got closer, I was able to catch up on 2016 releases that I'd missed at the cinema. Some were great, others not so, and a select few were just plain 'meh'. I find an odd sense of pleasure writing a review about a movie I hated, but movies that fall into that middle ground are harder to write about, so today I present a Mini Reviews special for those!

The Driftless Area (2016)

What even is this movie?! It felt like it was trying to be two very different things. On one side, it was a dramatic romance, with what I think is a huge plot twist I won’t mention, but it’s so glaringly obvious I’m not even sure if it’s meant to be a twist. On the other side, it’s a thrilling cat and mouse chase, full of danger. The Driftless Area (2016) could have been either of these, and done it reasonably well, but it failed by being both. I watched this solely for the cast, whom I love, but I was left pretty disappointed. I expected more from Anton Yelchin, Zooey Deschanel and Aubrey Plaza, they are some of my favourite faces! An interesting watch, but forgettable.

Mojave (2016)

I spotted Mojave (2016 here in the UK) on a VOD platform, mainly because of the beautiful Oscar Isaac’s face. It was tempting to watch it there and then, but I checked out the plot summary at least before I made up my mind. IMDB describes this as ‘A suicidal artist goes into the desert, where he finds his doppelganger, a homicidal drifter’. Um, what? I spent 50% of the time watching this raging about the fact that Tom (Garrett Hedlund) looks nothing at all like his ‘doppelganger’, until I looked it up and realised the word has two different meanings. The other 50% I was cringing every time Oscar Isaac said the word ‘brother’ in that accent. Ugh.

Central Intelligence (2016)

Comedies are always hit and miss, but I was hoping to enjoy Central Intelligence (2016) more than I did. It was decent, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart have great chemistry together, but the plot fell a little short. In fact, it felt like the exact same plot from another comedy I can’t recall right now. I’d like to see these guys pair up again, though! It was nice to see some of my other favourite faces, although *spoiler alert* because his reappearance was the plot twist, Aaron Paul saying ‘bitch’ made me laugh and cringe at the same time.

Review: The Wedding Ringer (2015)

Another flight another shed load of films to review :-) This time, I was poorly so wasn't really looking anything that involved too much thinking and I had been desperate to see this since I saw the trailer.

Doug (Josh Gad) is due to marry the girl of his dreams but there is just one problem, he doesn't have any friends to be his Best Man or his Groomsmen.  However, he may have already told his Bride to be that he has, enter Jimmy Callahan (Kevin Hart) a professional 'Best Man' for hire who brings along seven groomsmen for the never done before,  'Golden Tux' package.

The story is absolute tripe, its completely ridiculous, massively flawed and there are hundreds of plot gaps that would drive anyone mad - i.e. why doesn't anyone he knows, know his best friend or the fact that he doesn't have one?! But for all its flaws, it is incredibly entertaining, I laughed out loud numerous times and I didn't notice the time fly by.  It is predictable but even that didn't bother me too much.

It's an easy to watch, rainy day comedy that makes no sense when you really look at it. However, if that's what you're looking for then it's also a really funny comedy. There are moments I really laughed out loud, and others where I felt the need to check my phone for something to do. 

Kevin Hart who I usually find irritating was actually really funny and the dance montage (seen partially in the trailer) left me in fits laughter, my face actually hurt afterwards. I don't remember seeing the trailer but that dance montage is one of the funniest things I've ever seen! Just when you think that's it, the song changes! The rag-tag group of misfits Jimmy rounds up as Groomsmen are all completely idiotic but they still manage to make me laugh.

Josh Gad and Kevin Hart work really well together! I hope we get to see more of Josh Gad in the next few years, I think he's great, and he always manages to get a laugh out of me.

Don't pay attention to the dialogue, plot or predictability and just enjoy the laughs. I hate to admit this but for the first time I wanted a 1/2 score available (shush Allie!) because this is not as low as a 6 but not as good as a 7! argh!

Woah. Woah! Can we discuss this? Like, actually have a conversation about half scores without you telling me off? This is what I've been trying to tell you since we started this blog! Tell you what, you can give it a 6, and I'll give it a 7, and then that falls in the middle anyway.