People Tell Me I Look Like Han Solo.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
DVD Review: Fanboys
THE MOVIE
Fanboys is a horrendously bad movie, possibly the worst thing I’ve reviewed for this blog. The story of this “comedy” follows a group of geeks who embark on a road trip to
break into George Lucas’ ranch to steal a copy of Star Wars: Episode I months before its release in the summer of 1999 because one of them is dying of cancer and won’t survive to see its theatrical release. On its own, that premise could be mined for laughs, but it would have to be by more talented people than the creators of Fanboys, because this movie sucks. Hard.
I’m enough of a Star Wars geek that Fanboys should be right up my proverbial alley. It’s filled with references large and small to George Lucas’ sci-fi/fantasy saga, and I got every single one. But none of them are funny. To their credit, the filmmakers do expand their jokes beyond purely Star Wars references, but those aren’t funny either. One of two good jokes in the entire movie is that the security guards at Lucas’ ranch are dressed like the android guards in Lucas’ debut feature film, THX-1138. Aside from that, Fanboys is a collection of nerd stereotypes and weak sophomoric humour.
The cast of Fanboys isn’t terrible, on paper. Dan Fogler is capable of making me laugh (I’ve caught bits of Balls of Fury on cable and it seems surprisingly watchable), but here he’s just a standard obnoxious loudmouth. Jay Baruchel, one of the secret weapons in Tropic Thunder, is wasted. (He’s a nerd with big glasses! And he’s called “Windows” because he’s into computers! Get it?!?!?) The only cast member who acquits herself well is Kristen Bell as the token girl. Leaving aside the implausibility of a girl that smart and cute hanging out with a bunch of losers like this (and I say this while sitting comfortably on the “losers” side of the cosmic equation; I speak from experience), her character of a ballsy, take-no-guff chick who’s more capable than all the guys put together, is a nice echo of Princess Leia’s character in the original 1977 Star Wars.
For all the geek references and cameos peppered throughout Fanboys, the movie’s ultimate undoing is that it’s just not funny. Nothing is clever, the bulk of the jokes are obvious, and when they’re not they’re just stupid. (If you’re a co
medy screenwriter and you come up with a scene where the male heroes unwittingly enter a gay bar, just go ahead and kill yourself. Or, if you’re not into dramatic gestures, find another job.) I vaguely recall reading somewhere that there was a mini-controversy over the studio’s handling of Fanboys’ release – it sat on a shelf for a couple of years and apparently the studio was a bit apprehensive about a so-called comedy in which one of the leads has terminal cancer – but a far more plausible explanation is that they saw that this movie is terrible and were reluctant to dump it on an unsuspecting public. My inner geek could never imagine I could write this, but even Kristin Bell in the Slave Leia bikini can’t save this one. Ninety minutes staring at a wall would be time better spent.
GRADE: F
THE EXTRAS
There’s a commentary track with director Kyle Newman and the cast, which has a nicely jovial tone, particularly when the actors, who seem to get along famously, swap jokes and amusing stories from their time filming the movie. Newman steps in to moderate a few times, but the more he tries to discuss why certain things are funny (and they never actually are), the more ridiculous he sounds.
Also included are a pile of deleted scenes, a handful of fluffy featurettes about how great the movie is, and a series of webisodes made during production. It’s a nice enough DVD package; too bad the movie sucks.
Fanboys is a horrendously bad movie, possibly the worst thing I’ve reviewed for this blog. The story of this “comedy” follows a group of geeks who embark on a road trip to
break into George Lucas’ ranch to steal a copy of Star Wars: Episode I months before its release in the summer of 1999 because one of them is dying of cancer and won’t survive to see its theatrical release. On its own, that premise could be mined for laughs, but it would have to be by more talented people than the creators of Fanboys, because this movie sucks. Hard.I’m enough of a Star Wars geek that Fanboys should be right up my proverbial alley. It’s filled with references large and small to George Lucas’ sci-fi/fantasy saga, and I got every single one. But none of them are funny. To their credit, the filmmakers do expand their jokes beyond purely Star Wars references, but those aren’t funny either. One of two good jokes in the entire movie is that the security guards at Lucas’ ranch are dressed like the android guards in Lucas’ debut feature film, THX-1138. Aside from that, Fanboys is a collection of nerd stereotypes and weak sophomoric humour.
The cast of Fanboys isn’t terrible, on paper. Dan Fogler is capable of making me laugh (I’ve caught bits of Balls of Fury on cable and it seems surprisingly watchable), but here he’s just a standard obnoxious loudmouth. Jay Baruchel, one of the secret weapons in Tropic Thunder, is wasted. (He’s a nerd with big glasses! And he’s called “Windows” because he’s into computers! Get it?!?!?) The only cast member who acquits herself well is Kristen Bell as the token girl. Leaving aside the implausibility of a girl that smart and cute hanging out with a bunch of losers like this (and I say this while sitting comfortably on the “losers” side of the cosmic equation; I speak from experience), her character of a ballsy, take-no-guff chick who’s more capable than all the guys put together, is a nice echo of Princess Leia’s character in the original 1977 Star Wars.
For all the geek references and cameos peppered throughout Fanboys, the movie’s ultimate undoing is that it’s just not funny. Nothing is clever, the bulk of the jokes are obvious, and when they’re not they’re just stupid. (If you’re a co
medy screenwriter and you come up with a scene where the male heroes unwittingly enter a gay bar, just go ahead and kill yourself. Or, if you’re not into dramatic gestures, find another job.) I vaguely recall reading somewhere that there was a mini-controversy over the studio’s handling of Fanboys’ release – it sat on a shelf for a couple of years and apparently the studio was a bit apprehensive about a so-called comedy in which one of the leads has terminal cancer – but a far more plausible explanation is that they saw that this movie is terrible and were reluctant to dump it on an unsuspecting public. My inner geek could never imagine I could write this, but even Kristin Bell in the Slave Leia bikini can’t save this one. Ninety minutes staring at a wall would be time better spent.GRADE: F
THE EXTRAS
There’s a commentary track with director Kyle Newman and the cast, which has a nicely jovial tone, particularly when the actors, who seem to get along famously, swap jokes and amusing stories from their time filming the movie. Newman steps in to moderate a few times, but the more he tries to discuss why certain things are funny (and they never actually are), the more ridiculous he sounds.
Also included are a pile of deleted scenes, a handful of fluffy featurettes about how great the movie is, and a series of webisodes made during production. It’s a nice enough DVD package; too bad the movie sucks.
Labels: comedy, DVD review, Star Wars
¶ 9:07 AM 0 Comments
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Indiana Jones and the Painfully Unnecessary Sequel
So I finally got around to seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (I wasn't in a huge rush to see it to begin with, though I do love the previous movies, and the middling-to-awful reviews didn't make it an opening-weekend priority), and Sweet Christmas is it bad. The couple of friends I knew who'd seen it before me were even harder on it than the critics I'd read, but even that didn't prepare me for whatever it was I sat through yesterday afternoon.
Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't the worst movie of the year or anything, nor do I expect to clean up at The Razzies (do I smell a Speed Racer sweep?), but considering the previous films in the series, Crystal Skull was an almost unforgiveable mess. It was so bad I struck up a conversation with a total stranger (something anyone who knows me knows I never do) about how bad it was while he waited for our respective companions (well, I was there with a friend, he was there with his pregnant wife who was due that day) outside the washroom afterwards. Obviously Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the greatest adventure movies ever made, I doubt there's many people who'd dispute that. Temple of Doom gets a lot of shit (I managed somehow to not see it until it was first released on DVD in the 2003 box set), and while it's a step down from Raiders, it's still pretty good. And Last Crusade, I've recently learned, is also the subject of a lot of negative ink (or whatever the digital equivalent is in the Internet age), but I've always loved it, and as the first Indiana Jones movies I saw in theatres, watching it in the cinema my dad back in 1989 is one of my Hall of Fame moviegoing experiences.
So....what the hell happened here? Crystal Skull tries so hard to evoke the previous movies, Raiders in particular, that it's almost embarassing. And while for years I defended Harrison Ford from the "he's too old for another Indy movie" criticisms....yeah. He's old. I was as excited as any movie geek when I first heard that after years of rumours they were officially making a new Indiana Jones movie. But the result is proof that sometimes, everyone's schedule being clear at the same time isn't really a reason to make a movie. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, they were apparently so excited to see that they could make another Indy movie, nobody stopped to ask if they should.
The movie is a collection of lame gags, pratfalls and some brutal greenscreen and CGI work (CGI gophers? WHAT?!?!?), and the "performances" are mostly just mugging. The only actor who I thought was okay was Shia LaBeouf, who continues to make me like him. As bad as Crystal Skull was, if they do go ahead with what's hinted at in the movie and shift the franchise into adventures about his character, I'd probably check it out. Between Transformers and this, Spielberg obviously sees something in this guy, and I'm starting to see it too.
The bad dialogue and lame jokes really seem like the work of producer George Lucas, who, with this film, cements my suspicion that he really doesn't understand what it is that made people fall in love with his two signature franchises. (I actually quite enjoy the Star Wars prequels, though I will never argue that they're really any good, but that's a topic that deserves a rambling post of its own....STAY TUNED!) From Lucas, I expect this sort of garbage, but Spielberg is better than this, and I'd hoped that his superior filmmaking skills would override Lucas' meddling, but I was wrong. So very, very wrong.
Seriously, man. CGI gophers.
Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't the worst movie of the year or anything, nor do I expect to clean up at The Razzies (do I smell a Speed Racer sweep?), but considering the previous films in the series, Crystal Skull was an almost unforgiveable mess. It was so bad I struck up a conversation with a total stranger (something anyone who knows me knows I never do) about how bad it was while he waited for our respective companions (well, I was there with a friend, he was there with his pregnant wife who was due that day) outside the washroom afterwards. Obviously Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the greatest adventure movies ever made, I doubt there's many people who'd dispute that. Temple of Doom gets a lot of shit (I managed somehow to not see it until it was first released on DVD in the 2003 box set), and while it's a step down from Raiders, it's still pretty good. And Last Crusade, I've recently learned, is also the subject of a lot of negative ink (or whatever the digital equivalent is in the Internet age), but I've always loved it, and as the first Indiana Jones movies I saw in theatres, watching it in the cinema my dad back in 1989 is one of my Hall of Fame moviegoing experiences.
So....what the hell happened here? Crystal Skull tries so hard to evoke the previous movies, Raiders in particular, that it's almost embarassing. And while for years I defended Harrison Ford from the "he's too old for another Indy movie" criticisms....yeah. He's old. I was as excited as any movie geek when I first heard that after years of rumours they were officially making a new Indiana Jones movie. But the result is proof that sometimes, everyone's schedule being clear at the same time isn't really a reason to make a movie. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, they were apparently so excited to see that they could make another Indy movie, nobody stopped to ask if they should.
The movie is a collection of lame gags, pratfalls and some brutal greenscreen and CGI work (CGI gophers? WHAT?!?!?), and the "performances" are mostly just mugging. The only actor who I thought was okay was Shia LaBeouf, who continues to make me like him. As bad as Crystal Skull was, if they do go ahead with what's hinted at in the movie and shift the franchise into adventures about his character, I'd probably check it out. Between Transformers and this, Spielberg obviously sees something in this guy, and I'm starting to see it too.
The bad dialogue and lame jokes really seem like the work of producer George Lucas, who, with this film, cements my suspicion that he really doesn't understand what it is that made people fall in love with his two signature franchises. (I actually quite enjoy the Star Wars prequels, though I will never argue that they're really any good, but that's a topic that deserves a rambling post of its own....STAY TUNED!) From Lucas, I expect this sort of garbage, but Spielberg is better than this, and I'd hoped that his superior filmmaking skills would override Lucas' meddling, but I was wrong. So very, very wrong.
Seriously, man. CGI gophers.
Labels: Movie review, Star Wars
¶ 7:56 AM 1 Comments
