Showing posts with label Will Ferrell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Will Ferrell. Show all posts

Friday, 17 December 2010

Movie Review: Megamind


Have seen a great many films recently as we had an entire day to catch up with the ones we had previously missed, So again it look like the next three articles will be film related (I do have other interests honest.)
First up in Chronological order is MegaMind this cartoon features the vocal talents of Will Ferrell with Brad Pitt as the supporting star (Brad Pitt supporting Will Ferrell – Hollywood has really gone mad!) The film is yet another evil genius turned good (Universal’s Despicable Me being another example) but being from Dream Works you are pretty much guaranteed that there will be a few laughs – although once again it would appear that Dream Works have looked to invest their budget in big name voices.

Megamind is the Blue coloured super genius who strikes up an early rivalry (From 8 days old) with Pitts Superman clone Metro Man when their planets are sucked up by a black hole and both are sent to earth to fulfil their destiny, Where Metro Man falls serendipitously into the mansion of a wealthy family his ship forces Megamind to crash in a Prison for the criminally gifted and so it would seem that their roles are set, to battle the causes of Good and Evil in intricate plans some of which Metro Man wins, others Megamind almost wins until almost by chance Mega Mind wins and is actually able to defeat Metro Man and so take over Metro City as the evil overlord – however soon a new threat emerges to attack Metro City and Megamind is called upon to become a hero – Can he answer the call? – of cause he can, I am sure that this isn’t a spoiler as if you didn’t see where this was going then this cartoon may be a bit to intense for you. Anyway the story aside, which is a very predictable by the numbers movie (It is after all a cartoon) the test of a cartoon these days is “are there enough laughs to make the film interesting to the Parents as well as the kids?” The answer is probably Yes, although as is often the case with these things there were not many laugh out loud moments and it is reasonably difficult to remember them afterwards.

The main selling point of this film however is the voice talent and the visual scale with Metro City being carefully recreated by Dream Works which they clearly hope will be able to cover the inefficiencies in the plot and the lack of originality, I have read a review stating that the Film is not as funny as you would expect from a Will Farrell movie, which I disagree with however I have never been a Will Farrell fan as I find that I struggle to ever feel sympathy for the “idiot” character that he usually plays and so actually found the change of pace to the more cerebral, but luckless Megamind actually a much better fit with the comedy I enjoy.

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

The other guys fail to impress.


As the last two "comedy" films I have seen were depressingly unfunny I was dearly hoping that the new Will Ferrell - Mark Wahlberg movie would make some recompense. However to get things clear upfront, out of the few hundred movies I have seen (like a nerd I used to count but stopped three years ago at 357) this is only the second movie I have walked out of, I accept then that this film may have the greatest ending in movie history, but I was unwilling to allow anymore of my life to be wasted on it.


The film was your formulaic set up of disgraced super cop teaming up with a pen pushing loser, unfortunately this is as close as they came to a plot. What sets this film apart from the plethora of (still very bad) better movies is that this film did not feature a single likable character. The loser was a horrible person, who treated his wife with utter contempt. Whilst Marky Mark winged and whined his way through the film like a petulant six year old.


Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Samuel L Jackson are ok in their brief cameo at the start of the movie, but after their unexpected exit you are left wondering if they simply read the rest of the script and decided it was better to kill the characters before their careers.


In summary I would probably say that this film provides a good service as it should ideally prove that brain storming humorous ideas before throwing away the funniest two hundred does not make the rest a script. I am sure that during the planning stage for this movie a selection of comically challenged writers said to each other on many occasions "wouldn't it be funny if..." well now I can conclusively answer - No.