I used Bridesmaids as an opportunity to treat my girlfriend and mum to a trip to the flicks. On the face of it seems like a lovely gesture, almost a sacrifice, taking them both to see a chick flick. However I was safe in the knowledge that the 'girl's Hangover' had been described as a film that boyfriends won't mind seeing with their girlfriends. It was win-win. Two sets of brownie points and a few laughs at the Electric Cinema.
Then as I sat in my obscenely comfortable seat and lifted my legs upon the foot rests, I started to worry. The Hype machine had been cracked up to 11 for this film and I became hesitant, what if those pesky marketing men had created a wave of hoopla that nothing could possibly live up to. The familiar dread of watching a rom-com set in.....
Then the film started and we meet Kirsten Wiig's Annie for the first time, having sex. Not in a nice, fluffy, rom-com way, but an awkward, slightly but not too graphic, funny way. From that moment I was sold on the film, it had me at 'Hello'.
What follows is Annie discovering her best friend is getting married and she is to be Maid of Honour, then to find out there is a another Maid of Honour, a rival, and how all of this affects the girls and the wedding plans in the run up to the big day. A not totally original set up, but one not ever seen like this before.
It really is a funny film, possibly the funniest I've seen in a long time. It's got the big set-pieces, the headline grabbers, yes they're based on familiar themes (toilet humour and getting pissed), yes they possibly go on a little longer than they should but they're done with so much dare that they feel original, and if you've got a funny scene, who is going to resist the temptation to wring every last drip of laughter from it. Plus, there aren't many massive toilet humour gags involving dress fittings - I can honestly say that if I ever see a woman in a wedding dress crossing the road hurriedly I will be quickly going in the other direction. Without looking back.
It's not just big long stretches of farts and slapstick. Bridesmaids has much more to offer than that and much of that is down to Wiig. There are two distinct layers to her impressive performance as Annie, one is that she is obviously inherently funny. Even with dialogue that doesn't contain a joke, she manages to deliver it in such a manner that it seems both natural and funny, I'm not talking Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell gurning, just subtle, natural on-screen humour. She's a great physical comedian too. She doesn't take herself too seriously so that she worries she's making herself look a fool or unattractive. Often with female actresses in comedies (yes you Jennifer Anniston) they will attempt a a gross-out or a slapstick sequence, but end up looking perfect without even a hair falling out of place. Wiig doesn't give a monkey's. She's running around kicking cakes, trying to push water features over, climbing on top of heavy swinging doors, putting herself through cringing sex scenes. It's refreshing and, more importantly, funny. The other layer to her performance is how believable she makes the whole thing. Despite all of the chaos around her, and the mad cap characters bouncing off her, I was totally convinced by her character and the mid-thirties crisis she is going through. It grounds the film and makes Annie a character we empathise with. It must also be said that this is helped hugely by some brilliantly acted and written scenes in the early part of the film where we are introduced to the friendship between Annie and her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). I had a quick scan around the cinema during these scenes at the women around me and the smiles indicated to be that they had got those exchanges pitch perfect.
Supporting characters in the party include Wendi LcLendon-Covey as a bitter mother locked in a sexless marriage, a character we've seen many times before but it still manages to squeeze out a laugh or two, a goodie two-shoes square played by Ellie Kemper who doesn't really have a great deal to do, Rose Byrne as Helen, Annie's rival is great, despite seemingly being perfect in every way, she does a great job at being deliberately malicious but at the same time never letting her Stepford Wives persona slip. It's creepy and funny at the same time. Then there is Melissa McCarthy's Megan. I'm not really sure how to describe her. Mental, eccentric, deluded, realistic, heroic, disgusting. They all apply but each adjective on their own wouldn't do the character justice. She really needs to be seen to be believed but she does steal the show and if Wiig doesn't worry about looking a fool, McCarthy revels in it and rolls around in a bath tub of it.
It's not all praise, praise, praise I'm afraid though. Chris O'Dowd as the love interest really didn't do it for me. It's a huge shame because he is a funny bloke, and it must be said that he is fairly funny in this, but his scenes with Wiig just don't work at all. It's a massive issue because the rest of Wiig's character is done so well, she then stumbles in to scenes with O'Dowd's policeman that contain no chemistry whatsoever. It may seem a minor concern but while the make up/conflict scenes between Annie and Lillian feel heartfelt/upsetting, I didn't care what happened in those scenes where Annie and the copper were going through the would they/won't they routine. It detracts massively. Some of the supporting cast seemed to come and go at random, there would be a bit of back story for one of the girls, then you wouldn't see them again for the rest of the film. It felt as though there were more scenes in there for the cast that were cut out, but thought wasn't given as to how those cuts would affect the rest of the movie. It's a small gripe but for it to be noticeable means it should have been addressed.
After the film I had a post-mortem with my girlfriend and mum and I seemed to enjoy it more than the two of them. Mum thought it would be funnier (a symptom of the hype machine I'm afraid) and the girlfriend thought it was a bit more soppy than she expected. I thought it was very funny, touching in places, and probably the best, all out comedy I can remember in years.
I think the excitement generated says a lot about the quality of so-called 'chick flicks' and rom-coms as the stampede towards cinema screens alludes to an admittance that those films really aren't all that. Hopefully the success of Bridesmaids (£3.44m in it's opening weekend here) can raise the bar and make film studios realise that the can't get away with just putting Jennifer Aniston or Kate Hudson in a film with a half finished script where they forgot to put the jokes in.
Oh and make sure you stay for the credits.
About Me
- Ollie Miney
- Lover of all things film, ready to tell you what to avoid, and more importantly, what to seek out.
Showing posts with label Rose Byrne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rose Byrne. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011 - Cert 12A)
Reboot time again folks. Sorry, prequel, origin story, something like that. X-Men: First Class is the second attempt at looking at what happened before the three X-Men films released during the last 10 years. The first was imaginatively called X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I've got to admit I've not seen it, the poor reviews put me off, but also I seem to recall the first X-Men film being about the origins of Wolverine and how he went from nutcase with an a metal skeleton to hero with a metal skeleton - do we really need to do that again? First Class is a very different beast, stepping away from the era we already know, it's seeks to be part of the 'Grown Up' canon of superhero films and comic book adaptations, more Nolan's Batman than Ghost Rider.
After an unsettling opening to the film in a Nazi concentration camp in the Second World War, First Class takes us bto the sixties, which does feel like an interesting novelty, all polar necks and Chelsea Boots, and shows us how the X-Men really started and more specifically how Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Professor X (James McAvoy) went from being friends fighting a common foe, Kevin Bacon's enjoyably over the top Sebastian Shaw, to becoming the enemies that we know so well. It is set against the backdrop of the Cold War, which admittedly is an idea 'borrowed' from Watchmen but quickly becomes increasingly interesting as it gets closer and closer it's finale at the setting of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cold War, Nazis, concentration camps, missiles. Even for X-Men, which has always sought to try and tackle important issues in a relatively serious way, this is clearly an ambitious attempt at some serious, hardcore stuff.
Matthew Vaughn (his second crack at an X-Men film having originally been in place for The Last Stand only to pull out late on) got the gig on the back of the success of Kick-Ass and he is reunited with his writing partner for that film Jane Goldman who is quickly becoming a hot property on the screenplay front. A fine ensemble cast of respected actors was put in to place. As well as Bacon, Fassbender and McAvoy, there is also Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Oliver Platt, Jason Flemyng, January Jones and Nicholas Holt. Everything seems to be in place for a superhero classic, and it really does almost get everything right. Only almost though.
It's becoming the norm now to have fine actors in these types of film, but even with that the case, you do almost feel spoilt for choice with what First Class serves up. James McAvoy is as superb, and plays the Professor X role in exactly the way that Ewan McGregor should have played Obe Wan in the Star Wars prequels. Wisdom and wit without being patronising or irritating, he also somehow manages to remain watchable and likeable despite spending a lot of the time with fingers on his temples (the standard visual portrayal of mind reading). Fassbender is pure class and as Magneto clearly has the best role of the film, dark edginess and full of vengeance. He avoids the temptation to simply mope about looking hacked off, there is a wry dryness to the way he plays it, adding extra layers of depth that make the character far more interesting. It reminded me of Christian Bale's Batman, serious but only in a knowing melodramatic, comic book kind of way. Kevin Bacon relishes being a villain dressed in flashy, disco-like suits and Pat Sharpe mullet, kind of Ming the Merciless crossed with Beatlemania. The smaller roles support ably with Nicholas Holt and Jennifer Lawrence standing out of the pack in the roles that get the most freedom to be more than just a mutant causing damage/saving the day (see poor old Jason Flemyng).
Another positive is that the film knows what it is and doesn't try to be anything more than that. Yes it does want to be taken seriously but it also knows that it's about mutants in silly costumes and big blue and red monsters. It fits the tone of the previous X-Men films perfectly, not a comedy but playing it's content with it's tongue knowingly but gently poking into it's cheek. There are the usual moments of humour where our characters try to harness their powers to slapstick effect, but there is also playful banter between the characters that echoes the Kick-Ass script (perhaps one of the ingredients that Goldman brings to the table) and a great gag poking fun at the Wolverine character.
One of the things that can be so enjoyable with a prequel is discovering how we get to an ending that we know must happen. The joy is seeing how the blanks are filled in, kind of like algebra on the big screen. We know that Professor X is wheelchair bound, we know that he and Magneto don't continue to be friends, but how do we get from them meeting, becoming united, to that tragic position. It asks us to invest, using our knowledge and the affection held for familiar characters, in what is happening on screen and to get sucked in. I graciously accepted, with bells on. It's also worth saying here that as we reached the conclusion, and what a conclusion, a tremendous cocktail of action, conflict and drama, I was so engrossed in it that I forgot how it had to end and was shocked, and genuinely moved, when it came to a close as it did.
Unfortunately it's not all praise. The main problem with the film is that I think it is a victim of it's own ambition. You have Nazi concentration camps, you've got the Cold War and The Cuban Missile Crisis, Russian leaders, footage of JFK, not to mention the usual themes associated with the X-Men, what it means to be 'normal', racism, society, all of this alongside friendships and relationships. Plus it's a superhero film as well, and there are more than the average amount of characters to include. The concept of taking a real life historical conflict and suggesting that mutants were the cause and the saviour is an interesting one and one that worked very well, but with everything else its all just too much. All of the ideas are touched upon, glossed over, the viewer can do no more than just dip their toes into it.
All of the elements deserve much more time, arguably their own films. It's all results in it feeling crowded and a little more shallow than it should do. I wanted it to have more substance, but it just didn't, like Watchmen, but the difference with that was that it really was style over substance, well all style, no substance. First Class just has too much content, the depth has become diluted. A watered down version of what it set out to be.
I shouldn't dwell on that though, because Vaughn has created a very good film, probably one of the best summer blockbusters of the year. Splendid action sequences (most notably the finale and also Magneto destroying a boat with his powers and a massive metal chain and anchor -he really is making a name for himself, this, Kick-Ass and The Layer Cake) well acted, emotional, and most importantly it's fun. Everything a superhero film should be.
After an unsettling opening to the film in a Nazi concentration camp in the Second World War, First Class takes us bto the sixties, which does feel like an interesting novelty, all polar necks and Chelsea Boots, and shows us how the X-Men really started and more specifically how Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Professor X (James McAvoy) went from being friends fighting a common foe, Kevin Bacon's enjoyably over the top Sebastian Shaw, to becoming the enemies that we know so well. It is set against the backdrop of the Cold War, which admittedly is an idea 'borrowed' from Watchmen but quickly becomes increasingly interesting as it gets closer and closer it's finale at the setting of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cold War, Nazis, concentration camps, missiles. Even for X-Men, which has always sought to try and tackle important issues in a relatively serious way, this is clearly an ambitious attempt at some serious, hardcore stuff.
Matthew Vaughn (his second crack at an X-Men film having originally been in place for The Last Stand only to pull out late on) got the gig on the back of the success of Kick-Ass and he is reunited with his writing partner for that film Jane Goldman who is quickly becoming a hot property on the screenplay front. A fine ensemble cast of respected actors was put in to place. As well as Bacon, Fassbender and McAvoy, there is also Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Oliver Platt, Jason Flemyng, January Jones and Nicholas Holt. Everything seems to be in place for a superhero classic, and it really does almost get everything right. Only almost though.
It's becoming the norm now to have fine actors in these types of film, but even with that the case, you do almost feel spoilt for choice with what First Class serves up. James McAvoy is as superb, and plays the Professor X role in exactly the way that Ewan McGregor should have played Obe Wan in the Star Wars prequels. Wisdom and wit without being patronising or irritating, he also somehow manages to remain watchable and likeable despite spending a lot of the time with fingers on his temples (the standard visual portrayal of mind reading). Fassbender is pure class and as Magneto clearly has the best role of the film, dark edginess and full of vengeance. He avoids the temptation to simply mope about looking hacked off, there is a wry dryness to the way he plays it, adding extra layers of depth that make the character far more interesting. It reminded me of Christian Bale's Batman, serious but only in a knowing melodramatic, comic book kind of way. Kevin Bacon relishes being a villain dressed in flashy, disco-like suits and Pat Sharpe mullet, kind of Ming the Merciless crossed with Beatlemania. The smaller roles support ably with Nicholas Holt and Jennifer Lawrence standing out of the pack in the roles that get the most freedom to be more than just a mutant causing damage/saving the day (see poor old Jason Flemyng).
Another positive is that the film knows what it is and doesn't try to be anything more than that. Yes it does want to be taken seriously but it also knows that it's about mutants in silly costumes and big blue and red monsters. It fits the tone of the previous X-Men films perfectly, not a comedy but playing it's content with it's tongue knowingly but gently poking into it's cheek. There are the usual moments of humour where our characters try to harness their powers to slapstick effect, but there is also playful banter between the characters that echoes the Kick-Ass script (perhaps one of the ingredients that Goldman brings to the table) and a great gag poking fun at the Wolverine character.
One of the things that can be so enjoyable with a prequel is discovering how we get to an ending that we know must happen. The joy is seeing how the blanks are filled in, kind of like algebra on the big screen. We know that Professor X is wheelchair bound, we know that he and Magneto don't continue to be friends, but how do we get from them meeting, becoming united, to that tragic position. It asks us to invest, using our knowledge and the affection held for familiar characters, in what is happening on screen and to get sucked in. I graciously accepted, with bells on. It's also worth saying here that as we reached the conclusion, and what a conclusion, a tremendous cocktail of action, conflict and drama, I was so engrossed in it that I forgot how it had to end and was shocked, and genuinely moved, when it came to a close as it did.
Unfortunately it's not all praise. The main problem with the film is that I think it is a victim of it's own ambition. You have Nazi concentration camps, you've got the Cold War and The Cuban Missile Crisis, Russian leaders, footage of JFK, not to mention the usual themes associated with the X-Men, what it means to be 'normal', racism, society, all of this alongside friendships and relationships. Plus it's a superhero film as well, and there are more than the average amount of characters to include. The concept of taking a real life historical conflict and suggesting that mutants were the cause and the saviour is an interesting one and one that worked very well, but with everything else its all just too much. All of the ideas are touched upon, glossed over, the viewer can do no more than just dip their toes into it.
All of the elements deserve much more time, arguably their own films. It's all results in it feeling crowded and a little more shallow than it should do. I wanted it to have more substance, but it just didn't, like Watchmen, but the difference with that was that it really was style over substance, well all style, no substance. First Class just has too much content, the depth has become diluted. A watered down version of what it set out to be.
I shouldn't dwell on that though, because Vaughn has created a very good film, probably one of the best summer blockbusters of the year. Splendid action sequences (most notably the finale and also Magneto destroying a boat with his powers and a massive metal chain and anchor -he really is making a name for himself, this, Kick-Ass and The Layer Cake) well acted, emotional, and most importantly it's fun. Everything a superhero film should be.
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