Last updated on May 27, 2014
I already wrote my thoughts about Memorial Day last year. So, if you’re interested in that, go read that! For right now, though, I want to talk about fun things. As the first piece of writing since returning from a long vacation, you’d expect nothing less than me watching a lot of films, right?
Escape Plan is not a great film. This movies adds exactly nothing to the legacies of Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger and their crazy 1980s vibe. The plot barely makes any coherent sense, and I would find myself hard-pressed to relay any actual details of why Stallone’s prison escape expert was sent somewhere he can’t escape without help. Honestly, was there a villain here other than the warden, or did I miss it? Of course, the fact that Jesus (from The Passion of the Christ) plays a villain will definitely throw you off, but that just lends to the overall absurdity of this old man star vehicle.
Given all that, I enjoyed Escape Plan far more than anyone should. At first glance, you’ll see all these flaws and every prison escape trope known to man. After a while, though, you realize that the film plays itself straight even knowing its absurdities. The script does not contain constant callbacks to the two leads’ previous film careers (a problem I had with The Expendables and its sequel at times), and it recreates a sense of cheesy, over the top fun. Well, I am assuming “fun” also comes in the form of violent fighting and stupid one-liners that make me grin like a four year old. There’s planning, there’s Sylvester Stallone being called a “super genius” by multiple people, and there’s Schwarzenegger acting like a strange comedic weirdo. If those things sound awful, you definitely aren’t in the market for this.
Really, what else do you expect of these men in the twilight of their careers? They starred and built their careers on classic action tales during the Reagan era, and to expect something different means you didn’t like that style in the first place. The world of black and white morality returns!
However, I will say one thing: I do not understand the conclusion of this movie at all. To say it straight without spoilers of any kind: things just sort of happen without any coherent structure, and suddenly everything resolves in exactly the way you would imagine. For the life of me, I can’t tell you how it all got there suddenly, and that’s where I got confused. It’s not even that the ending complicates things; it just explains what happened in an entirely haphazard, crazy way that couldn’t possibly be true.
But hey, I wasn’t looking for a coherent script anyway, so what’s the difference? Raucous action and funny lines are all I requires of these men, and Escape Plan totally does its job no problem.
On the other hand, the relative “safety” of the formula Bridesmaids copies to the literal letter does not help it much. I heard great things about this film and its hilarity far in advance, so I suspect the hype would inevitably let me down.
The problem with Bridemaids really isn’t that it “isn’t funny”. In fact, it’s plenty funny. Unfortunately, one moment in the film basically spoils absolutely everything else after it. If you’ve seen it, you know it, and if you haven’t, it involves probably the most perfect scene of comedic scatological humor even committed to celluloid. Seriously, I had to pause and laugh for about five minutes before continuing!
Of course, do you want to continue? Not really, unless you love romantic comedy trope filling shoved into an R-rated shell. Honestly, I would not be surprised if they initially conceived of this venture for a PG-13 demographic and “spiced it up”, so to speak, for the monies. Absolutely everything you expect crops up: a central event in the main character’s life, a fight between friends/newcomers who will spoil everything, the perfect man coming into her life and the rejection of said mate, and then everyone learns their lessons to resolve everything right at the end. If it were any more predictable, then I may as well watch something with Meg Ryan in it because I can get this anywhere.
That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy romantic comedies (Kate and Leopold comes to mind. Yes, I just said I enjoyed that), but you need some pizazz and some really original scripting to fill a 125 minute movie. Here, they throw some dirty (and incredibly not interesting to me at all, cheap ones all) jokes into the mix with some rather rout comedy stuff, and only Melissa McCarthy’s character (who, in my opinion, should have won that Academy Award because MAN, WHAT A CHARACTER) provides any amazing laughs out of the whole ordeal outside of THE PERFECT COMEDY SCENE. The film drags approximately at the point where Kristen Wiig’s character continues her downward spiral into being an awful person, and then there’s another hour to go! Ugh! The pacing’s just awful, and it isn’t especially helped by having THE PERFECT COMEDY SCENE about 30 minutes into the film.
Honestly, I could care less whether women or men make me laugh. This, however, still reeks of the same-old, same-old with dirty jokes to make it “equal” other R-rated films. And really, I am surprised at the praise this received for recycling stuff that functioned much better in other comedies. Maybe I saw too many of these films already, but you really need to go over the top and utilize that R-rating with something incredibly creative if you want to make a convincing go of it. Bridesmaids just didn’t do that at all for me.
Seriously, just go Google the Food Poisoning Scene and get it over with!
