On the "Let's Be Cops" Facebook page, this quote is posted: "Thinking is overrated. Get your ass over to the theater and be entertained!" So apparently if I don't think during this movie, I'll be entertained. What a misguided assumption. Perhaps the person who wrote that post was trying to warn us.. Whatever the case, the statement is wrong: "Let's Be Cops" lacks the blissful goofiness that would bring me to the nirvana-like state of the baby giggling at a silly noise or a well-handled fart joke. Instead, its jokes pile on top of each other, desperate for a laugh.
Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. star as Ryan and Justin, two thirty-year-old un-achievers who attend a costume party dressed as cops. The general public believes the two to be real, and after having a bit of fun with their new power, they raise the stakes on the charade, to the point where they buy a police car, patrol the streets, and get swept up in the middle of an arms smuggling deal.
The short review is this: "Let's Be Cops" is a bore. I openly laughed once. In 104 minutes, I laughed at a 30-second-long joke. (This is 0.48% of the running time, for those wondering.) The movie barrages, eventually suffocating the audience with action and jokes in its first half hour. It feels like the writers tried to cram as many jokes into a scene as possible, hoping one of them would hit. However, there's no time to let a joke sink in, so each impact falls flat.
When the movie does take a break, it slugs through, haphazardly crafting the plot as it goes along. It's as if the authors hadn't planned to do anything with certain locations and characters past the first act, and realizing there was an entire subplot left to go through, they had to tie every loose end together, logic be damned. By this point, I'm fidgeting around in my chair, checking the time. I don't care anymore.
Johnson and Wayans are each obnoxious in their own right. Johnson is more brash, with honking laughter and an abundance of unfocused energy. Wayans is the opposite, going on autopilot, save for a few scenes. He seems comfortable away from the insanity: smart thinking in real life, but I thought "thinking was overrated." When Johnson isn't bringing to mind a bad amateur night at the comedy club, Wayans is barely trying.
To sum it up, "Let's Be Cops" was a waste of time. The deciding factor in most flops this year so far is execution, and it's no different here. Giving power to those who shouldn't or don't have it is always a great source of comedy: look at "The Toxic Avenger", "The Nutty Professor", "Spaceballs". However, the pacing is a mess, the story is ridiculous, the jokes aren't funny, and the final nail in the coffin for "Let's Be Cops" is the cardinal sin of comedy: it's boring, another example of a good premise being done wrong. Just skip this one. Thank you for reading, I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.
With the recent passing of Robin Williams, I've been, as most people have, watching his stand-up comedy, to refresh fond memories but primarily, laugh. Willams' energy stunned me. His physicality was wild and unpredictable. His tongue spit debilitating wit at unfathomable speeds. For as boisterous as Williams could be, he possessed the ability to hush crowds. With hundreds of attentive eyes fixed on every word, he told us about our "spark of madness". He breathed life into "seize the day."
However, using "Dead Poets' Society" as an example, Williams never shied away from reality. "Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die." He was honest, in a way that was kind. It's so easy to lie with a smile on one's face, so much tougher to tell the truth in the same manner.
So as Williams raved on about alcohol, the history of golf, the Iraq War, Viagra, and the need to fulfill our exploratory, creative desires, we saw a portrait of a man, not a talent. He was someone, whom, especially in his work, was transparent, if we looked hard enough. He valued poetry, imagination, adventure, but most importantly, he recognized the need for balance. I think he realized that because the world could be so scary and painful, he needed to concentrate every kind of comfort and joy into a 67-inch hairy-armed package.
It was a tough calling to take on, but if there was anyone who got the closest to setting the scales right, it was him. Seize the day, my friends, just as Robin Williams taught us how. Thank you for reading; I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.
My sense of anticipation is fickle. When anyone mentioned the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie prior to its release, my reaction ranged from reserved excitement to eye-rolling dismissal. This roller coaster of emotion wasn't stabilized by the flurry of news beforehand. Michael Bay was in the producer's chair; the turtles were planned to be aliens; the fans revolted, filmmakers repudiating the idea; creators Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman were brought in as character writers for the Turtles; the trailers revealed faithful renditions of the brothers, bolstered by high-energy action and well-crafted CGI; Megan Fox was cast as April O'Neil. It's very clear: this whole process was a cluster of madness.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is a comic book turned TV phenomenon turned movie series, centering around four turtles (Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo) and a rat named Splinter. All are exposed to a mutagen causing volatile humanoid growth, taking refuge in New York's sewer systems. Splinter becomes an adoptive father to the turtles, teaching them the art of ninjitsu, so that when the time is right, they can defend the city from the Shredder, leader of a criminal syndicate of ninjas called the Foot Clan. The turtles' main ally in their battles is April O'Neil, a driven reporter who'll do anything to get her story, even if that means getting captured by the bad guys.
In this movie's origin story, O'Neil is frustrated by the fluff stories she's assigned. Desperate to make her break as a serious reporter, she stumbles across the scene of a Foot Clan robbery, foiled by a hulking, shadowy vigilante. Following the trail leads her to the turtles, who are hesitant to trust her, fearing she'll expose their existence. A few encounters lead to a working partnership and when the Shredder (Tohoru Masamune) arrives in New York, they team up to stop a plot threatening to harm the citizens and seize New York under the name of the Foot.
What plagues the film is indecisiveness. Often times scenes build up atmosphere, whether it be a heartwarming talk between the Turtles or a menacing encounter with Shredder, and suddenly, the scene will slam to a halt for a joke. It's as if the filmmakers decided no scene in a kids movie can exist without some corny humor. Other moments flip the script, attempting to make this all sound plausible, but fall apart as characters make wisecracks, attempting to show the movie is aware of its own silliness. These aren't cute flirtations with the fourth wall; they clunkily interject in the plot, wasting time. There's a time for comedy, action, suspense, drama, and the film shows no restraint, letting it all whiz by.
The plot muddles along, attempting to tie in a genetic researcher/entrepreneur (William Fitchner) with connections to O'Neil's father, her relation to the turtles (told in poorly-edited exposition), and a subplot regarding April's cameraman (Will Arnett) trying to get her in the sack. For a movie about reptilian martial artists who fight crime and eat pizza, there are hefty amounts of dialogue: sprawling exposition and plot reveals that attempt to relay any semblance of story, but go in and out the mind like cinematic mush.
Fox is given an unbelievably dense character, whom after somehow getting a job in a respectable (again, loose use of the term) TV news station, acts as if mentioning giant anthropomorphic ninja turtles won't raise any executive's eyebrows, and has the audacity to whine about getting fired when she spent the previous scene incoherently babbling 'evidence' of said turtles' existence to her boss (Whoopi Goldberg collecting a check). Now, Megan Fox has become somewhat of a poster girl for ditzy bombshell actress/models in recent years, but she didn't write her character. April O'Neil is a bore in this film, spewing exposition and hiding for three-quarters of every battle. She doesn't show any investigative skills exalting her to any status other than smiling in front of the camera. While Fox can be seen staring into space during a fight scene, it's not like the script give her much else to do. She tries to bring some energy in the beginning, but the character just takes up space.
Now, I know the three-star rating is beginning to confuse the lot of you, so I'll switch gears here. The plot is weightless, creating little to no impact. In a strange way, this helps the film. Unlike the "Transformers" series, which equally lacks plot but sprawls on for 150-plus minutes, offending ethnicities and stereotypes, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is just bland, a light PG-13 where the harshest word spoken is 'ass': surprisingly easy to sit through. the bad stuff is just mediocre, but when the movie hits gold? It's a surge of nostalgia.
Laird and Eastman save this film. The turtles are faithful interpretations of the originals (who could've expected such a result from their creators, right?), well-acted by the physical and voice actors. As per usual, Raphael's gruff badassery and Mikey's wide-eyed antics steal the show, leaving kids to leave the theater quoting their best lines for weeks to come. The turtles' brotherly bickering brings a smile to my face, especially as they try to stop Mikey from embarrassing himself in an attempt to woo April (all set to the tune of The Turtles' "So Happy Together".) The CGI is well done: not only do the turtles look like they're on the set, but their faces are expressive, bolstered by the actors' range of emotion. Kudos to Pete Ploszek (Leonardo), Alan Ritchson (Raphael), Jeremy Howard (Donatello), and Noel Fisher (Mikey), who capture the spirit of the turtles phenomenally.
Is this a good film? Absolutely not. The plot is a bore, when it doesn't try to cram in subplots and secondary characters. However, the movie portrays the turtles so well and so entertainingly, with riveting action and clever comedy, that I ended up having fun. Fans of the old and new shows will enjoy the turtles' camaraderie and fighting skills. After the rest is sifted away, we're left with an energetic big-budget episode of the Ninja Turtles show, and to be honest, I'm happy with that result. With the sequel already officially announced, here's hoping Laird and Eastman can take over the show and give us the playful action powerhouse the fans desire. Check it out if you're a fan; if not, wait for streaming services to pick it up.
Thank you for reading; I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.
An alternative to the six-star rating system I've coined is the John C. Reilly barometer.™ "Gangs of New York", "Chicago", "Step Brothers", "Wreck-It Ralph": they're great movies, but what do they all have in common? The curly-haired funnyman. The number of good films I've seen the actor in has surpassed coincidence, so as an ongoing theory, I claim John C. Reilly to be as strong a beacon for film quality as Kevin Bacon is for networking. This week, I'm testing the barometer once again, and I'm happy to say, the evidence is in my favor. The newest recipient of the John C. Reilly seal of approval is "Guardians of the Galaxy". (Reilly plays a policeman.)
Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is a thief-for-hire, scrounging the galaxy for treasure as the blaster-wielding Star-Lord (at least, that's what he calls himself). His newest foray involves an orb that, due to its intense power, attracts Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), whom assisted by the assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), vows to use the orb's power to conquer the galaxy.
Naturally, there's a small legion after Peter. Not only is Gamora after the orb, but a pair of hunters, the raccoon-like berserker Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and giant tree-humanoid Groot (Vin Diesel) are after the bounty Quill's boss (Michael Rooker) has set on his head (Peter's attempts to sell the orb for himself didn't go unnoticed). After a chaotic meeting, the four are captured and thrown in prison. After recruiting Drax (Dave Bautista), whose family was murdered by Ronan, they form a shaky alliance to help one another in their pursuits of money, vengeance, freedom, and redemption.
"Guardians of the Galaxy" is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer. To say so is surprising; the film's one of the more obscure properties in Marvel's line-up. This creates a paradox of expectations: this is a fairly unknown source material, so the general public doesn't know what an adaptation should be like. However, due to the Marvel name, the public expects something fresh and vibrant; the brand, like John C. Reilly, has become synonymous with quality.
"Guardians" is comfortable when relishing in its off-kilter swagger, as Star-Lord uses a rat/lizard hybrid as a microphone to sing Redbone's "Come And Get Your Love", or as the movie explores, in glorious slow-motion, Rocket's assault rifle fetish (a cinematic first, I'm sure). Director/writer James Gunn infuses scenes with witty, playful dialogue; the characters have a blast bantering back and forth, leading to some of the most enjoyable Marvel movie quotes to date.
However, Gunn is no Whedon. Despite some of "Guardians'" scenes resembling "The Avengers", primarily a couple Groot battles, Joss Whedon's light-hearted popcorn film full of punchlines and silly faces takes a couple more risks with Gunn at the helm. A scene in a bar has Rocket and Drax on the verge of a brawl, both drunk and insulted. While the three-way fight between Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor was played for laughs and bombastic action, Rocket and Drax's dilemma comes off as both humorous and pathetic. Gunn and co-writer Nicole Perlman don't show these characters as heroes, but people (I use the word loosely) trying to make the best of their situations. They're violent, desperate, grieving, full of loss and hurt. These characters' vulnerabilities are put on the spotlight, free of any romanticism the "brooding gritty hero" stereotype usually brings to the table. They can be pitiful and pathetic, but they're honest in a way that feels completely natural.
Where the movie begins to falter in its latter half, where its loose, haphazard confidence tightens in the wake of a typical superhero climax. For a movie so comfortable being tongue-in-cheek, almost to the point of parodying other superhero movies, as Ronan's plan nears closer to fruition, the gang suits up and plays it straight. Now, this isn't "The Dark Knight" or anything; we have nuggets of the sarcastic, hyper-energetic first half, just not as much. While I can understand the necessity for a superhero film to follow the cliches of rallying the troops and leading one last stand as part of crafting a more cohesive plot, I can't help but feel disappointed Gunn and Perlman didn't keep pushing the ante and taking more risks, testing the boundaries of what a Marvel audience can take. I found details in the resolution to be sequel bait, and while the climax is huge, it's mostly predictable, in terms of what stages the climax needs to go through (see "Captain America: The Winter Soldier").
Despite a few setbacks, "Guardians of the Galaxy" is impressive. Its humor, characters, direction, and tone make it a unique experience, enjoyable from start to finish. The risks Gunn and team take pay off well, and I hope that with the film's success, later movies in the superhero genre will take even more risks, expanding their artistic horizons. Full of fun and heart, the movie earns a good recommendation.
Thank you all for reading, I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.
P.S. I cannot stress this enough. People, this is a Marvel movie. Stay through the credits! There are two after-movie scenes: one in the middle of the credits and one afterwards. Not only do these kinds of scenes foreshadow and give hints to the sequels, they provide an incentive to remain and recognize the work from the hundreds of people whose day jobs go into the entertainment. Let's show them our respect and have some fun while doing so. :)
