Masterminds Reviews

I’m going to assume that the true story was just a kernel here. A mere springboard for its talented ensemble to riff and develop a series of improbable characters and situations, but that’s also the problem with Masterminds. Too much anarchy and lunacy in service of nothing but those exact elements becomes numbing. For comedy to work there has to be a grounding element, a truth and goal at work to keep the hijinks from twisting away into madness for madness sake. I think you see where I’m going with this.

 

Masterminds present no recognizably human characters or emotions aside from Kristin Wiig, who often appears to be acting in another, better movie entirely. In small supporting parts this can work, look at Kate McKinnon’s aggressively committed near-android of a spurned ex, but when so many of the characters present as these caricatures it begins to drown itself out in a sea of mugging, scene-stealing, and desperation.

 

This is a reoccurring issue with Jared Hess’ work, the most famous of which is Napoleon Dynamite, a hangout film that presents a time warp setting and no characters that resemble a functional, normal person that’s gained  a cult following. Hess lets his cast rapid-fire jokes at the screen, and by sheer volume of material some of these land. For every DOA reoccurring joke involving misfiring guns, obsession with butt cracks, and wasting Leslie Jones (a crime, I say!), there’s the sheer weirdness of McKinnon, Wiig’s discomfort with a kiss from Zach Galifianakis wearing a sleek blond wig and snake eye contacts, or Jason Sudeikis’ overly emotional hitman.

 

In the end Masterminds evens out to being fine. The kind of fare you watch on a bored evening at home while sorting through Netflix and thinking “this sounds fine.” A cast this good deserves better, though.

Mientras que el humor y las actuaciones están bien, por el otro lado es una comedia de pastelazo común y corriente que desperdicia la premisa que sonaba interesante; y para colmo, no deja nada para recordar.