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An average movie

Posted : 11 years, 6 months ago on 27 September 2012 12:31

Beforehand, I wasnโ€™t expecting much from this flick and when I discovered that it was produced by Happy Madison (Adam Sandlerโ€™s producing company), I was expecting it to be even worse. Eventually, I have to admit that the beginning was actually pretty good with some hilarious jokes. Unfortunately, it just lasted about 20 minutes and the rest of the movie was just rather painful and embarrassing to watch. Itโ€™s too bad because the whole thing actually had some potential, it started pretty good and there was a decent cast as well (Steve Zahn, Jonah Hill, Justin Long, Robert Patrick). Unfortunately, it is basically one of those comedies which keeps throwing some stupid jokes at you every 10 seconds. Unfortunately, from those 10 jokes maybe only one was actually funny so, as a result, the whole thing was rather tedious to watch. Finally, I always find it rather disappointing when filmmakers rely on stupidity to make you laugh rather than showing us something insightful. Anyway, to conclude, even though the concept was kind of cool and even though the first 20 minutes were pretty funny, it was still a very average comedy after all and it is not really worth a look, even if you like the genre.


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Strange Wilderness

Posted : 13 years, 6 months ago on 6 September 2010 01:57

This is a severely deficient "comedy" that won't lead you to burst out laughing, not even occasionally. I realize that humor is subjective, but the farthest Strange Wilderness will go with ANYONE is providing a couple of sporadic "hehe" moments. The unfortunate thing is that, for all of those moments in which there is a glimmer of comedic success, there are about two or three inexplicable moments in which the film features unnecessarily crass footage of an animal being ravaged or gutted or something along those lines. Some comedies are crass in their choice to overdo things such as toilet humor, which is something that at least can be considered passable in some cases, but there is absolutely no reason to do this. I watched the credits just to see whether they'd have the "no animals were hurt in this film" disclaimer, and they did have it, but that still doesn't make this any better (and it certainly won't make PETA happy).

The moments of potential laughs mostly come courtesy of a clearly high Justin Long, who sometimes makes random comments that work way better than anything else in the movie's "script" (if there was a script at all). One suspects it may be more fun to hang out with Justin himself after he's smoked a few joints than watching this movie, though (that actually might be worth the price of admission!). Heck, it may have even potentially been a good movie if his character had been the lead, but Steve Zahn is horribly over-the-top and annoying as the protagonist.

One thing I'll note, though, is that the 0% Tomatometer certainly is a little harsh. Strange Wilderness sure is a disposable movie, but it's also better than a lot of truly HORRIBLE comedies that I've had the misfortune of watching (and probably several that I haven't watched). I mean, last year's Bratz didn't score a 0%, and that film was fucking painful. In fact, "fucking painful" doesn't even begin to describe how ghastly it is. Watching Strange Wilderness at least isn't torturous. But it's far from being a joy ride.

This film is incredibly stupid, which is something that doesn't always have to be a detriment in comedies. You can milk stupid moments in such a way that you can sometimes even turn them into comedic genius, and it's been done plenty of times before, but such isn't the case here. Only in about 10% of the film's moments does it feel like there's at least the possibility of an effective attempt at humor. One thing that's interesting is that the laughing shark in the trailer is pretty funny, but when put into the context of the film during its final scenes (which are horrible), it doesn't work, for some reason. Maybe it's because, by that point, we're already pretty tired of the lameness and couldn't summon a laugh even if there was something that was truly funny.

Speculation that the guys were high while filming is more than likely valid, particularly in the case of Jonah Hill and Justin Long, both of whom are much better comedic actors than to embarrass themselves with this. But if they were high, I guess you can't blame them, and I guess that means they had a pretty fun time shooting the movie. Good for them, but it's too bad that nobody will come even close to having as much fun watching it.


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