Review by Loc
A couple years back, Forgetting Sarah Marshall came and went through movie theaters. It wasn’t a huge success, but it did introduce audiences to Russell Brand’s unique sensibilities. Since that time, he’s hosted some MTV awards show and become Mr Katy Perry. At this point, he’s more famous for his paparazzi exploits and pop-star wife, at least in this country. So, what happens when you go back to basics, harness his comedic talents, and find him in an R-rated comedy romp? Quick hit: mostly a WTF movie.
Sarah Marshall led to a funny phenomenon. Brand’s Aldous Snow was disarmingly charming and funny. Meant to be “the other guy”, Brand played a wildly popular rock star who had stolen Sarah Marshall from the dumpy guy played by Jason Segal. Without getting into too many details, I’ll simply mention that Aldous Snow was a brutally, naively honest character. He was a recovering addict now practicing yoga, he was comfortable in his stardom but weirdly down-to-earth in his presence, and in a group of self-involved, melodramatic exes Snow exhibited the most sane, honest humanity amongst the group. He ended up being the most likable character of the movie which was a nice surprise.
That probably also led to the development of a spin-off movie starring this character. Unfortunately, throwing a bunch of clichéd rock star scenes together doesn’t a movie make. And coupling a legit funnyman in Brand with a supposed funny fat guy in Jonah Hill doesn’t make a funny movie. But when you mix these all together you do get results: crappy results.
Let’s see what stereotypical scenes we get. There’s the “partying gets out of hand in a hotel room to disastrous results”. There’s the “average guy goes to party with a celebrity and reaps the benefits”. There’s the “big public performance likely to be doomed by random hijinks”. It’s all there, with attempts to amp it up to 11, but just because you add in things like drug mule scenes and random threesomes doesn’t make it better. It just makes you scratch your head.
Sure, you don’t expect plot or story progression in a movie like this. However, to get the formula right in this type of formula movie, you have to have funny scenes and likable characters. The scenes are largely not funny, just out there.
And the characters? This is where it really misses the mark. Jonah Hill, not funny, not interesting. As the fish out of water, sure, he’s adequately uncomfortable in all the craziness. Yet, a lot of his motivation is built around a relationship that is actually not interesting or endearing. Thus, you don’t care about his relative discomfort and you don’t care if he succeeds or not.
More tragic, the de-evolution of Aldous Snow. In his original appearance, Snow was unwittingly likable. In this film, he’s not: he does nothing redeemable, he forces others to compromise their morals, and he’s a generally miserable bloke off the wagon. Had they stuck to the new age, womanizing but caring conundrum, the film would have greatly benefitted. Instead, you’re stuck watching a man not only suffer a mental breakdown, you watch him destroy other lives around him, supposedly in the name of comedy. Except, the scenes aren’t funny, they’re just unnecessarily raunchy. And not really that raunchy.
Overall, Get Him To The Greek is dressed up as your buddy road-trip flick with the celebrity/average Joe option installed. In reality, it’s a bunch of half-written rowdy scenes that are not funny, not over-the-top, and sometimes headscratch-inducing. In the end, you want a movie like this to hit The Hangover formul, lots of random but fun scenes. This flick really only nails the random part. Out of a 72 hour deadline, Get Him To The Greek is late with 36 hours.
Rated: 5/10
