Magic Mike (2012)

Will You Welcome to the Stage, the One, the Only … MAGIC MIKE!

When I first heard about today’s movie, I knew it would only be a matter of time before it was requested.  It was even easier to reach that conclusion since I heard about it from a request from my friend Christian.  It certainly wasn’t a movie that appealed to me personally and, since it was still in the theaters, I felt like it would just have to wait to be reviewed until I could find it in a RedBox.  But Christian was not alone.  Ashley seconded the idea, my sister liked the idea, and Bob thought it would be funny as well.  By the time Loni requested it, I decided that was it.  I’d have to see this movie while it was still in theaters.  My readers just could not wait long enough for this to be on DVD.  They needed my thoughts now.  There was still the problem of my masculinity while purchasing a ticket to this movie, but Liz and Bonnie helped me with that.  I’m seeing this movie with two ladies!  I cannot possibly be gay!  But I’ll still see if I can write this review with a lisp as I review Magic Mike, written by Reid Carolin, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and starring Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Cody Horn, Matthew McConaughey, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Adam Rodriguez, Kevin Nash, Gabriel Iglesias, Olivia Munn, and Riley Keough.

On a construction site, Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) meets a slacker named Adam (Alex Pettyfer), who moved to Tampa, Florida to live with his sister, Brooke (Cody Horn).  Later on, Adam sees Mike as he’s trying to get into a club and Mike gets him in in exchange for a favor to be named later.  The two of them get a group of girls interested in coming to a male strip club called Xquisite.  When they arrive at Xquisite later, we find that Mike works there and his favor will be for Adam to help out backstage with the props of the other strippers, Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), and Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello).  When Tarzan gets too drunk (or high or something), the owner of the club, Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) talks Adam into getting on stage in his place.  Taking to the money, excitement, and women, Adam starts working permanently at Xquisite while Mike tries to bang his sister.

Here’s the stunning reveal: this movie was actually not that bad.  It’s a fairly basic, but charming, story with a few minor problems and, of course, the major problem that the film insisted on banging it’s cock against my head every five minutes or so.  The story of the movie, from what I’ve gathered, is an interpretation of Channing Tatum’s life before he started appearing in movies, and isn’t a whole lot more than the life and times of a male stripper.  He has problems with his fairly lonely lifestyle as his “girlfriend” is more of a fuck buddy that doesn’t actually have any interest in hanging out with him, and then he has money problems because he has shitty credit and wants to open a furniture business.  Adam causes a few problems for him because he takes it upon himself to take care of him while he’s getting a little too interested in the dark side of stripping, like the using and selling of drugs, and he’s taking extra care so he doesn’t get on the bad side of Brooke, who he would really like to bang.  And that’s basically it.  The way this movie charms is with the comedy, which comes with a fair degree of frequency, and some good dialogue, but only about half of it.  Sometimes the dialogue came off as cute and charming and funny, but sometimes it just seemed like they improvised too much.  Leaving in people stumbling over their words does help to make the movie feel a little more real, but I can watch real life anywhere.  I just choose not to.  I was watching a movie, so I’d appreciate it if they could form their sentences all the time.  The ending of the movie was also a little abrupt and unsatisfying, but it was still a decent enough happy ending so I didn’t walk away too disappointed.

Let’s face facts: this movie was not meant for me.  I’m a straight dude.  This movie has a very targeted audience and that is anything with a pussy.  I imagine every single one of them will love it.  Straight men might even love taking their girlfriends to it, or at least allowing their girlfriends to see it, because I imagine they come home hungry for some penis.  What the movie does for me in this instance is just make me feel embarrassed.  I don’t look like all that man meat!  Not at all!  The ladies will probably approve of the somewhat sweet love story they can find here, but they’re probably going to be more about the stripping, and I’ll try to get into the head of a gay dude to describe it.  It was fabulous!  Straight me would say it was very well done and will certainly give the ladies what they came to this movie for.  I was trying to focus on everything else personally, but the guys were all big piles of man meat, to be sure.  And the greater majority of them could really dance.  The dancing was actually kind of interesting to watch and seemed well-choreographed.  Well, they started out that way.  They mostly ended up with a basic “Put dick in face and thrust” move, but they were actually pretty interesting until that part.  And they were well-filmed as well, being very colorful and full of the same spectacle you might actually find in a male strip club … for all I know.  I’ve never been to one!  I don’t know if this is all the ladies are looking for, but there’s really no dick in this movie, so don’t go if penis is all you want.  You see the silhouette of one about twice … not that I was counting or anything.  …cough…

Let’s quickly switch topic to the performances!  Channing Tatum was pretty enjoyable in this movie.  He was mostly charming and definitely still knew how to do the stripping side of the movie.  He was the one most guilty of seeming unpracticed in his dialogue, but I still blame the director more for letting it slide.  Alex Pettyfer was pretty quiet and didn’t do much, but I did think it was funny that his first time stripping was reminiscent of Coco from Fame, without the crying.  Cody Horn was mostly good as Brooke.  Not only was she pretty damned cute, but she did pretty good with the acting as well.  Didn’t mind seeing her in a bikini either.  Her character got a little annoying with how judgmental she was, though.  On the other hand, I don’t really know how I’d react if I were being courted by a female stripper.  Doesn’t SEEM like the kind of girl I’d want to date, but I guess that just depends on the girl.  As a little something for the fellas, Olivia Munn has a pretty prolonged scene in the movie where her boobs are on full display that I was entirely torn on.  It’s something that I’ve touched on before in my reviews, but I don’t really like seeing people that I like get nude in movies.  I love seeing boobs, and Olivia Munn has a great set of them, but I don’t think I really wanted to see her nude.  I like her because she’s funny and cute and seeing her boobs ruin my mental image of her for some reason.  Maybe it’s just because I feel bad that she felt like she had to do it in the first place.  She could have totally had a shirt on in that scene and it wouldn’t have changed anything.  I guess she just felt that all the guys were getting far more naked, so why not?  Alright, I should move on.  I’ve talked about her boobs too much for the people that are actually interested in reading this review.  Big Dick Richie!  I don’t actually have anything to say about him as he was an uneventful character; I just wanted to get your attention back.  One thing that did keep my attention was Kevin Nash, former WCW wrestler.  I recognized him the second I saw him and was interested to see what he was going to do in this movie, but he didn’t do a whole lot.  The main issue I had with him was that a combination of his age and compounded injuries over his wrestling days made it pretty obvious that he should no longer be trying to dance alongside these young and virile fellas.  To me, Matthew McConaughey brought my attention to something that I started seeing in the rest of the cast too: they all seemed to be just acting like themselves if they were strippers instead of actually giving a performance.  Matthew McConaughey was the greatest offender with this, being every bit the “alright, alright” McConaughey that he really is.  At one point, he gets in Channing Tatum’s face about something that actually stretched his acting chops, but the rest of the time was just keep living time.

So there it is.  Magic Mike was not as bad as I expected it to be.  The story was pretty basic, but still managed to be a charming look at the life of a male stripper.  The performances were all well done even though most of them just seemed to be the stripper versions of all of the actors, and I occasionally had problems with the dialogue seeming unrehearsed.  But, let’s face it, none of those things – or even my opinion – will make anyone see this movie.  Guys won’t do it because that would make them gay, and girls have already seen it 27 times.  But I will tell you guys that it’s not actually that bad if you can manage to not be made uncomfortable by long scenes of man meat.  And I will also tell you girls that you are perverts.  Magic Mike gets “Liz loved it” out of “Bonnie too.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook and Twitter.  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Contact (1997)

If It Is Just Us, Seems Like an Awful Waste of Space.

When I was looking through my DVD collection to pick out my favorite science fiction movie, I found it fairly difficult.  I had already done a lot of the bigger and more popular movies in the science fiction genre, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, and Back to the Future.  But then I saw this movie and decided, “Okay, so people are probably going to piss all over this being my favorite science fiction movie, but I’m gonna do it anyway.”  But look here, people.  This movie has space travel and aliens in it.  That definitely makes it a science fiction movie.  And it’s based on a book written by Carl Sagan.  So fuck your faces.  This movie is Contact, based on a novel by Carl Sagan, written by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and starring Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, James Woods, William Fichtner, David Morse, Jena Malone, Angela Bassett, Jake Busey, and Rob Lowe.

Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway (Jodie Foster as older Ellie, Jena Malone as younger Ellie) is a promising scientist that spends all of her time working on the SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence); having been inspired to do so by her late father (David Morse).  She works for a while at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico until Government scientist David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt) pulls the funding because he believes she’s wasting her talents.  Ellie is undeterred and takes her team, including her blind friend Kent Clark (William Fichtner), to find other funding, leaving behind the guy she met that she was getting too involved with, Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey).  After months of searching, she finally finds funding in the eccentric billionaire S. R. Hadden (John Hurt), giving her the ability to use the Very Large Array in Socorro County, New Mexico.  Years later, Drumlin pokes his head in again to screw things up for her.  On their last day with the array, Ellie finds a signal coming from the star Vega of repeating prime numbers.  The government gets involved, bringing Drumlin and National Security Advisor Michael Kitz (James Woods) into the picture.  On further analysis, they find that there are plans in the signal to build a transport device, but who will be the one to go?

I really like this movie.  Yes, it’s arguably not the most sci-fi movie ever, but it still definitely counts in my opinion.  It’s got a whole bunch of science in the movie, and it never happened so it’s also fiction.  Add in the travel through space and time and a brief appearance by aliens and I say it totally counts.  Deep down, I feel that I like this movie so much because of its religious undertones.  Or overtones, in some parts.  Personally, I believe in God, but I’m also big into science.  I’d equate myself with the Palmer Joss character.  I have my religious beliefs, but I don’t usually argue with people about theirs and I consider myself more fond of the search for truth.  This movie doesn’t take a strong stance in either the direction of belief or science, it more takes a stance that the over the top crazies in both directions are the jerk faces.  Jake Busey’s character, for instance, is a big jerkface.  But, on the other side, Ellie could kind of be a jerkface as well.  It’s a fairly accurate characterization from many atheists I’ve met that they seem to think they’re so superior to those stupid people that believe in a big man in the sky.  When Ellie and Palmer were in bed talking about it and she started saying things like, “Did you ever think that might not have been God,” he tolerated it.  I would’ve said, “Look, I didn’t criticize you for all your ‘I love stars and little green men’ bullshit!”  I liked it when later in the movie she says that she’d need proof to believe in God and he comes back with, “Did you love your father?  Prove it.”  Booyah, bitch!  I did feel bad for Ellie when she didn’t get taken on the transport at first because she doesn’t believe in God, but it also made sense.  If they’re supposed to be sending someone to represent Earth and 95% of Earth believes in a god of some sort, then they probably shouldn’t send someone that thinks the other 95% is stupid.  At the end of the movie, it all gets thrown back in her face in a really cool way, when no one believes what she’s saying about the transport because she has no proof and all her Occam’s Razor stuff is thrown back in her face, it’s very satisfying.  And just as satisfying that all the people who don’t believe her are basically criticizing something she believes, even though that’s what got her kept off the transport in the first place.  They don’t point it out, but the audience is well aware of what’s going on.  The movie doesn’t answer any questions when it comes to religion, but it doesn’t really try to.  It just poses a lot of questions that I found really thought-provoking and made me appreciate the movie.  The rest of the story was also very good to me.  I liked the science in the movie and it all seemed very sound as far as I could tell.  The drama aspects of the movie also succeeded with me.  The part of young Ellie calling into the Ham radio to try to talk to her recently deceased father broke my heart.  And you feel pretty shitty for Ellie in the other parts of the movie, especially when Drumlin keeps getting control and credit for her historic find.

The look of the movie holds up pretty damned well.  It’s not that old of a movie, but the graphics are mostly sound in the movie.  The opening of the movie was both a cool idea and a really good look.  They started out looking at Earth, listening to radio transmissions.  Then they backed up through the galaxy, playing older and older transmissions until silence.  They also put Bill Clinton into a bunch of scenes.  Adding his face to the scenes was convincing, but it obviously dates the movie a little bit.  The older and older this movie gets, the more likely it will be that people wouldn’t know who that was supposed to be.  Also, the graphics of travelling through the wormhole were really cool looking.

I really liked all of the performances in this movie.  For the most part, they stuck to some really good actors, so it wasn’t really a shock.  I think the world knows that Jodie Foster is a good actress, or at least was twice when she got her two Academy Awards.  But she was very good in this movie as well.  Foster is really believable and cute in her role, being able to convey her character’s excitement when she talks about the stars and the planets, and it’s very endearing.  This movie is probably the only occasion that I can think of that I was not annoyed by Matthew McConaughey.  His character in this movie was the one I identified with the most, and he did a good job doing the acting that was required.  The best example for me was the part where he had to ask the question that he knew would get Ellie disqualified.  The conflict is very evident on his face.  John Hurt was another character I liked.  He was definitely eccentric, and I liked the fact that he always seemed to know more than he was letting on.  Tom Skerritt was a very unlikeable character throughout the movie, but he did a good job at it.  He was always trying to steal Ellie’s thunder, but he did get me to start warming up to him near the end, which made what happen slightly after more effective.

All things being equal, the simplest answer is that this movie is really good.  The slightly more complicated answer is that I really liked the story, the look, and the bulk of the performances in the movie and it made for an interesting and thought-provoking movie.  I really recommend the movie, even though the inevitable outcome is the bulk of you saying that I can’t consider it a science fiction movie, let alone my favorite one.  Well to hell with you too.  Contact gets “I think it’s worth a human life” out of “You could call me a man of the cloth, without the cloth.”

Congratulations goes to Loni, who won the long battle to try and figure out this controversial choice for my favorite non-reviewed science fiction movie.  And more congratulations goes to her for being wise enough to say it was a good movie.  To hell with the rest of you!

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Frailty (2002)

Killing People is Wrong, Destroying Demons is Good

Today’s movie comes as another review request, this time from my friend Ryan.  The movie did not escape my radar, but I never got visual confirmation on it.  That is an overly complicated way to say that I knew about it, but never saw it.  And to even say I knew about it perhaps goes too far.  I had seen the DVD on the shelves at stores, knew who was in it, vaguely knew it was horror, and that about covers it.  And I do greatly appreciate it when these requests make me watch a movie I hadn’t already seen, even if that movie is horrible.  Is this movie horrible?  Let’s find out in my review of Frailty, written by Brent Hanley, directed by and starring Bill Paxton, and starring Matt O’Leary, Jeremy Sumpter, Matthew McConaughey, Levi Kreis, Powers Boothe, Luke Askew, and Missy Crider.

We start off the story in a police office in Dallax, Texas.  Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) enters his office to talk to a man, who introduces himself as Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey).  Fenton tells Doyle that a rash of serial killings known as the “God’s Hand” killings are being committed by his brother, Adam (Levi Kreis).  Asked to explain, Meiks jumps into flashback.  When Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) and Fenton (Matt O’Leary) were kids, they lived a pretty normal life with their unnamed dad, Dad (Bill Paxton).  Normal, until Dad wakes up one night, stares at his bowling trophy, and decides he’s gotten a message from God.  This message is that he needs to start destroying demons, and he’ll be sent three magical weapons and a list that he’ll use to do so.  These demons will look like normal people, but they’re demons.  There is no other explanation for this than divine intervention.  Let’s kill some people!  …I mean destroy demons.  Adam is totally on board with Dad, but Fenton would rather be a stick in the mud.  Dad assures Fenton that their sins will be revealed to the family when he lays his hands on the demons.  God sends Dad the weapons in the form of a magical lead pipe to knock out the demons, magical gardening gloves so their sins aren’t revealed before justice time, and an axe with ‘Otis’ carved into the handle.  As Dad starts getting into the destruction of demons, Adam feels that he too can see the sins of the demons with Dad lays his hands on them, but Fenton sees nothing beyond his father murdering people with an axe.  Generally speaking, this doesn’t work out well for Fenton, but he must figure out what to do about Dad.

I mostly liked this movie.  Well, technically I guess I’d say I did like the movie, but I had story issues that are spoilers and I’ll get to later.  I found the story itself very intriguing.  As a religious person, you might expect I would find this movie upsetting because God is causing this guy to kill people.  As a rational person, you might expect I would find it upsetting because this nutjob with his Jesus crutch is killing people.  But, as me, I just found this to be a good, intriguing watch.  I did have a lot of the Jesus crutch reaction, but I’ll get into that when I spoil in the next paragraph.  There were a few parts that confused me about the movie, but they didn’t stop me from enjoying it.  When Paxton and Fenton go to kill Fenton’s first demon, the “demon” guy is very creepy and tries to attack them, but this is never explained at all.  As far as he knows, it’s just a guy and his kids with a flat tire.  Why was he attacking?  This part stuck in my brain as a problem a lot longer than it probably should have.  But, again, this didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the movie.

::SPOILER ALERT:: Let’s talk about what did take away from my enjoyment: the ending.  Throughout the entire movie, you’re never given any reason to believe that Paxton is anything but looney.  You’re being told the story in a flashback from someone that you believe is Fenton, the person who didn’t believe Dad and Adam.  In the end, it turns out that not only is the story being told by grown up Adam (McConaughey lying and saying he’s Fenton), but there is a greater possibility that God actually is leading them to kill people.  When Adam touches the hand of Powers Boothe, he sees that Boothe killed his own mother and that paralyzes Boothe into being unable to attack Adam.  Also, the people that let Adam in to see Agent Doyle inexplicably remembered nothing about Adam and even didn’t recognize him when they saw him again, and the surveillance footage had an imperfection that blocked his face.  I believed Paxton was a lunatic for the entire movie because my version of God wouldn’t tell someone to go kill things.  The way this movie ends seems to almost endorse the idea that some people may be doing the right thing to go out and kill for God.  The reason I’m torn about the ending is because they path they took was the one with the interesting twist, but the horrible message.  I’ll say it for this movie: “Just enjoy watching it, but don’t listen to your bowling trophy if it tells you to kill people.”  ::END SPOILERS::

It turns out McConaughey is a monkey!  HAHA!  Spoilers were NOT really over!  Okay, I’m just kidding.  Let’s talk acting.  McConaughey puts on a pretty solid performance here, and by that I mean he gets his shirt off by the second time you see him.  COME ON, DUDE!  Ah, who’m I kidding?  If I had sweet abs, I’d never wear a shirt either.  But he is fairly solid in this movie, but he’s also scarcely in it.  When he is, he’s pretty apprehensive and beaten down as you would expect Fenton to be after what you see him go through, and he changes persona in the very end.  When he’s not in the movie, he’s played by Matt O’Leary, who performs very well for the most part.  He’s the only one who doesn’t believe what’s going on is divinely inspired and he can’t get help because he loves his father but knows he has to do something and starts doubting religion because of it.  He pulls off the conflict very well.  Both versions of Adam are barely featured here.  Powers Boothe was alright.  No complaints.  Oh wait…  That dude was Curly Bill in Tombstone?  I’m going to up my response to his performance.  He was now the greatest actor ever.  Okay, he wasn’t even the greatest in this movie.  Bill Paxton stole the show, and why wouldn’t he?  He did direct the thing.  But he does crazy well, and he also does loveable well, so he did this part perfectly.  He was crazy, but he was also a good dad, so you can understand Fenton’s conflict.

There you go, Ryan.  Thanks and you’re welcome.  Thanks because I did like this movie.  Interesting story with a nice twist ending, although that same ending kind of kicked any positive message in the balls.  The performances were also very good.  And, of course, you’re welcome because I just typed over 1200 words for you.  Frailty is definitely worth a rental, though I don’t think it’s on Netflix streaming, and I doubt you’ll find it in a RedBox, but you should rent it at least.  I think it’d probably be a pretty cheap purchase by now, and I may do just that.  Altogether, I will give Frailty “We’re just fulfilling God’s will” out of “Sometimes truth defies reason”.

Hey, peeps. Why not rate and comment on this as a favor to good ole Robert, eh? And tell your friends! Let’s make me famous!

Tiptoes (2003)

By a show of hands, who wants to see one of the strangest, worst Rom-Dram’s you could possibly sit through?  My friend Forty and I did, and so we got Tiptoes in from Netflix and got to it.  Tiptoes stars Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman, Patricia Arquette, Peter Dinklage, and a small part (no pun intended) goes to someone I actually knew before this movie and recognized in the movie, Bridget Powers (aka Bridget the Porn Midget).  I’m going to try to say nothing offensive to dwarfs in this review because I’m pretty sure Forty and I said them all while watching.

Tiptoes is the story of a couple, Steven (Matthew McConaughey) and Carol (Kate Beckinsale).  Carol is a painter and Steven trains fire fighters.  When Carol finds out she’s pregnant, Steven freaks out, but not for the normal male reasons for freaking out when his girl is preggers, but because Steven is the only normal-sized person born to a family of dwarfs.  Carol finds this out when Steven’s twin brother, Rolfe (Gary Oldman), a dwarf, attempts to visit his brother when he is out of town and ends up staying with Carol.  Carol pretty quickly becomes worried about the possibility of her baby being a dwarf but calms down after spending time with Steven’s family.  Strangely enough, when they have the baby and it turns out the baby is a dwarf, Steven freaks out and the two separate.  Carol goes to live with Rolfe and it is questionable whether Steven and Carol can ever work it out.  The movie ends with Carol and Rolfe kissing, suggesting they would perhaps end up together.

This movie is completely strange for reasons beyond the subject matter.  The movie seems to be the first (that I can think of) dwarf-empowerment movie, at least since Jason Acuna in the Jackass trilogy.  And that’s an honorable enough cause, but it’s very strangely executed.  There are a couple of scenes that stand out to me as examples of this.  The first is a phone conversation between Carol and Steven, discussing something about the baby or something.  Just a regular phone call but the movie jumps back and forth between McConaughey sitting out somewhere and Beckinsale’s mouth.  The kind of framing you might use if the two of them were having phone sex and not just an innocuous conversation about toast or something.  The second was brought to my attention by my friend Forty.  The movie chooses (strangely) to jump from the happy wedding day of Carol and Steven right into the birthing suite after the baby has been born and they are talking to the doctor about their dwarf baby.  Whether it was because they chose not to show any of the normal things one would expect in order to lead the audience to the conclusion that the baby was being born (going to the hospital, the birth itself, what have you) or whatever it was, Forty would not wrap his mind around the fact that this was not a dream sequence.  The third is the end of the movie.  Rolfe and Carol have become more close as he’s been there for her when his brother was not, Carol tells Rolfe “You can kiss me if you want” and he does … and the movie ends.  A VERY strange place to end the movie, not giving the audience any sense of closure whatsoever.  Did Carol work it out with her baby daddy Steven?  Did Rolfe become the father Steven couldn’t?  Did the baby explode?  You figure it out, audience!

As for the performances, the only stand out performance is Gary Oldman as Rolfe.  He did this performance by kind of hunching his back up and walking around on his knees, Dorf on Golfing style.  But, Gary Oldman being the great character actor that he is, he made it work.  The strange thing was the choices the director or editor made in showing his real dwarf stand in all the time.  They would show scenes of this dwarf getting up onto the couch or walking up a walkway a lot just to say “Remember, Gary Oldman is a dwarf here” way more than necessary.  The audience wasn’t the dumb one here, filmmakers.  But Gary Oldman did great in the role as Gary Oldman tends to do, but it got me thinking: How many normal roles has Oldman played in his time.  The most human and normal roles I’ve seen Oldman in were a comic book movie series and a series of witchcraft movies.  But he’s awesome so I let it slide.  McConaughey and Beckinsale did what they did in this movie.  McConaughey had to get those abs out at one point, of course, and Beckinsale spent most of the movie just being hot and good enough.  And the reason I haven’t mentioned the feuding couple in this movie, Lucy (Patricia Arquette) and Maurice (Peter Dinklage, who you may recognize from Elf and an episode of 30 Rock), is because there was literally no point to them in this movie.  They did nothing to move the plot along and, if anything, served only as a vague attempt at comic relief.

In conclusion, this is a totally wacky movie with a good heart to it’s premise and really poor execution, turning a movie that could have had a good message in to joke fodder.  I give this movie “You should see this just so I’ll have more people to complain about it with” out of “What the hell was that?”

And, as always, please rate, comment, and/or like this post and others.  It may help me get better.