Ever since it came out, this one’s been hyped like crazy. So, in an attempt to not repeat my ‘I Love Man’ experience, I decided from the get-go that I would watch this movie at the theatre with some friends or not at all (as opposed to watching it by myself, or the cam-rip.)
Was it worth it? Hell yes. The hype was true. Don’t try and be a skeptic/opposist and let the hype hurt your experience. If it does, watch it a couple months later and see if you still feel that way.
This movie has by far the most quotable and memorable lines than any comedy I’ve seen in the last couple of years. Some of them I can remember right now (spoiler alert): “Re-thaard”, “Fat Jesus”, “Rapies”, “To-da-loo, motherf***a!”, “Doctor Faggot”, “No, it’s a satchel… Indiana Jones has one,” “I hate Godzilla too!”, “It’s funny because he’s fat!”, “You can find it at the corner of ‘get a map’ and ‘f*** off’.”
The Mike Tyson cameo was probably the un-funniest part of the movie, mostly because there is so much good stuff before and after (sets an expectation), and also because the scenes with him have no punchlines or unexpected jokes. The director relies on Mike Tyson’s presence itself to create the laughs, which would work if it was surprising or unexpected, but we’ve already seen him in the trailer or heard about it from our friends, and he doesn’t pull anything else to break our expectation (as compared to say, Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder.)
I like comedies which don’t get too outrageous or cartoonish, and those which I can imagine taking place in the real world. This was one of them, thanks to its get-shit-faced-and-do-stupid-things theme. On the other hand, Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder from last year were still funny, but they weren’t plausible for a second, which is what makes this one so superior to them.
I also liked how it broke the cliche of a typical one-night-adventure movie, by fast forwarding the actual events and making it more about them trying to uncover what exactly happened. It plays out like a detective movie in that respect, and works in the favour of its comedy because it’s much more funny and interesting to hear about or see something after it happened than to watch it unfold before you.
The way I know this movie worked with my audience is because they seemed like they weren’t easy to please at the start. The Bruno trailer only pulled a couple of laughs, as did The Ugly Truth. But from about half an hour through the movie, they were all in splits and enjoying themselves like it’s the best comedy they’ve ever seen.
People should go see this a second time instead of Transformers 2.
