comedy

CHIPS

Cert 15 100 minutes Stars 1

The 1980s TV show about motorbike cops has been remodelled as a comedy. And the result is a car crash.

Though it doesn’t take itself seriously, it isn’t clever enough to mock its own stupidity or the ridiculousness of the old shows. Instead it delivers a wreck of vehicle porn, extreme sport fetish, and limp jokes. With added explosions.

An off-the-shelf plot sees an undercover FBI agent investigating corruption in the California Highway Patrol police department.

Michael Pena plays sex obsessed agent Frank Poncherello who is teamed up with over eager new recruit, Jon Baker.

He’s played by Dax Shephard, who is also the writer, director and producer. So we all know who to blame. He even finds a bimbo role for his wife. Which is nice of him. This is action movie road kill in stuck in a comedy cul de sac.

CHiPs is remarkable only for its leering sexism and its woeful inability to make you laugh.

 

GET OUT

Cert 15 Stars 4

Fear, prejudice, and hypocrisy are shown the door in this fiendish and clever comedy horror.

It’s an excruciating comedy of manners which takes a darkly violent twist. A racial riff on the sci-fi satire, The Stepford Wives, it includes echoes of comic Steve Martin’s early, funny films, such as The Jerk.

The smart script and knowing cast gleefully collude to laugh at the fears of white America, while highlighting where the balance of power really lies.

Brit star Daniel Kaluuya stars as a middle class photographer who is accompanying his white girlfriend to meet her wealthy parents at their big house in the country. But Rose hasn’t told them he’s black.

Director Jordan Peele had a surprise hit last year when he wrote and starred in kitty kidnap crime caper, Keanu. Get Out has so far scored for a cool £93 million at the box office. Hugely impressive for a film which cost a paltry £4 million.

Get out and go see it.

 

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES

Cert 12A 104mins 1 Star

Billed as a comedy, this sedate road trip is a laugh free and terminally mawkish ride.

A pair of unhappy British pensioners strike out for the south of France, hoping for a second chance at life.

Joan Collins gives her all as she sends up her public persona. But it isn’t much of a stretch for the former Dynasty star to play a friendless and foul mouthed former Hollywood star.

Pauline Collins is her mousey, downtrodden companion. The game old girls have trouble with the satnav, drive on the wrong side of the road and so on.

We’re also treated to the sight of the arse of the old Italian rogue, Franco Nero. The film finds this incurably funny. He plays a wealthy widower, with a fancy for footloose English women.

Though aimed at the grey pound, the script frequently patronises its target audience. Everyone deserves better than this ITV sitcom-standard offering.

At the least the soundtrack was occasionally jolly.

 

 

FIST FIGHT

Cert 15 90mins Stars 1

Feuding teachers prepare to square up in this witless high school comedy.

It stars the squeaky voiced and agitated irritant, Charlie Day, as a mild-mannered English teacher who spends the last day of term trying to avoid a physical confrontation with his combative colleague.

Before the big bout he must attend a job interview with the school board and his daughters talent show. Also, his wife is heavily pregnant.

Ice Cube scowls as his opponent, the grudge holding history teacher. When the former gangsta rapper invokes his most notorious lyric, ‘F*** the police’, he completes his sad cultural journey to cuddly and establishment friendly, pantomime villain.

Since the highpoint of TV’s Madmen, the career of Christina Hendricks continues to unravel. Having demeaned herself in last years Bad Santa 2, she appears here as demented drama teacher.

With no ‘F’ in laughter, Fist Fight scores a ‘Z’ for humour, and everyone involved in this debacle deserves double detention.

 

THE GRINCH

Cert U 90mins Stars 3

Benedict Cumberbatch goes green in this colourful animated family adventure from the makers of the Despicable Me franchise.

It’s based on the 1957 children’s book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, by the genius author, Dr Seuss, and the Sherlock star voices The Grinch, a mountain dwelling creature who lives all alone except for his faithful pooch, Max.

Due to having a heart two sizes too small, the Grinch hates Christmas and plans to run it for the happy singing townsfolk of Who-ville, a village which looks like an electric rainbow of Swiss chalets.

Meanwhile a pigtailed poppet called Cindy Lou lives with her hard working single mum and twin baby brothers, and she intends to trap Santa Claus so she can ask him for a very personal Christmas wish.

Cindy Lou is voiced by Cameron Seely, best known as Hugh Jackman’s daughter in the smash hit musical, The Greatest Showman.

As The Narrator, singer Pharrell Williams has nearly as many lines as Cumberbatch, though sadly too many of them have been written especially for the film, while veteran actress Angela Lansbury can be heard in a minor role of as the voice of The Mayor of Who-ville.

Home to everyone’s favourite yellow idiots, the Minions, the Illumination Studio are the same company who produced the 2012 adaptation of Seuss’s masterpiece, The Lorax.

Although it captured Seuss’s unique illustrative style while souping it up with state-of-the-art animation, it included too little of his wonderful whimsical charm and the childish delights of his verse. And this is no different.

Giving the Grinch a hard-luck backstory helps the scriptwriters flesh out the slim source material to a full 90 minutes, and encourages us to sympathise with him.

Mind you, it’s more than possible not to have been raised in an orphanage and hate Christmas songs playing on the radio with the same passion The Grinch does.

Equally under-served is the velvet voiced Cumberbatch who struggles with a strangulated US accent while striving manfully with some of the weakest material of his career, and is often reduced to  just providing yips, yowls and yelps.

However there’s plenty of slapstick and sentiment among the cute animals and crazy contraptions, plus all the fur and clothes look reassuringly warm and cosy in the frozen landscape.

More appealing than Jim Carey’s laboured live-action adaption which appeared 18 years ago, little kids will enjoy this version for its zippy pace, bold colours and daft humour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EATEN BY LIONS

Cert 12A 95mins Stars 3

This entertaining odd couple comedy takes an affectionate delight in the quirks and eccentricities of modern life as it cheerily explores British attitudes to race and disability.

Antonio Aakeel and Jack Carroll star as hapless half-brothers and the title refers to how the death of Jack’s parents was reported in the media.

Distraught by the death of their beloved and formidable Gran who’s played by Stephanie Fayerman in flashback, they decide to find Omar’s long absent father and the Bradford duo head off to Blackpool.

Johnny Vegas as a grubby guest house owner greets them sporting an alarming gold lame dressing gown, and the squabbling siblings’ detective work leads them to gatecrash an engagement party, which leads to scenes of sniggering embarrassment.

Written and directed by Jason Wingard and based on his award winning short film, this is sweet and silly, with engaging performances, plus it fully exploits the comic potential of Chesney Hawkes single, ‘I am the one and Only.’

SHAZAM!

Cert 12A 131mins Stars 4

Magic and monsters cause mayhem in this terrific crowd pleasing superhero romp which doubles as a body swap comedy. 

This confident seventh instalment in the increasingly lighthearted, bright and colourful, DC Extended Universe, takes place in same world as the recent billion dollar success, Aquaman, but don’t hold their breath waiting for the king of Atlantis to turn up.

Billy is a teenage orphan who while searching for his mother, finds himself endowed with extraordinary powers and unlooked-for responsibility.

Following an encounter with a wizard, whenever Billy says the magic word, ‘Shazam’, he’s magically transformed into an adult superhero, with strength, speed and the ability to shoot electric bolts from his fingertips.

Asher Angel is fresh faced and likeable as 14 year old Billy, with an exuberantly gleeful and goofy Zachary Levi, as his super-powered alter-ego.

The script owes a lot to Tom Hanks’ 1988 comedy, Big, and pays homage to it during a fight in a department store, while the films energy has the wide-eyed excitable tone of 1980’s kid caper, The Goonies.

As Billy learns to control his powers, the warm family dynamic of his diverse foster family provides a strong emotional grounding to the fantasy elements.

It’s here we meet Faithe Herman as Billy’s foster sister Darla, a delightful pocket-sized scene-stealing charmer.

Packed with jokes, this is funnier than Deadpool and has more laughs than Kick Ass, plus it’s also much kinder and far more appropriate for a family audience.

Brit actor Mark Strong played the bad guy in Kick Ass, and appears here as a super-villain who’s hunting Shazam to steal his powers, and is involved in all the flashy CGI action such as magic realms, scary demons, and mid-air fights.

Yet Shazam!’s greatest strength is knowing superheroes were created as a wish fulfilment fantasy for lonely adolescents, and is all the more enjoyable when putting them centre stage.

WILD ROSE

Cert 15 100mins Stars 4

Music and motherhood create spiky discord in this honest, raucous and irrepressible British musical drama, which is as full of heartache and hardship as the foot-tapping Country tunes which power the story.

Irish actress Jessie Buckley won renown last year for her riveting big screen debut turn in the terrific thriller, Beast, and here she’s staggeringly great as Rose-Lynn, a Glaswegian sweary single-mum who aspires to singing stardom in Nashville.

No retiring wall flower, Rose is immature and untamed as she struggles with the harsh truths of choosing between her kids and her dreams, but her passion and vulnerability makes us root for her.

And she’s the thorn in the side of her put-upon mother, Julie Walters, who responds by giving her most affecting performance in years as she copes with her daughter’s chaos.

The grandkids are generally un-impressed by the adults except when Buckley’s extraordinary voice belts out her own compositions, as she demonstrates why this Rose is blooming marvellous.

LONG SHOT

Cert 15 124 mins Stars 4

Charlize Theron and Seth Rogan try to defy the romantic odds in this funny and slick modern spin on the screwball comedy, set in the whirlwind world of a political campaign.

The South African actress plays US Secretary of State, Charlotte Field whose globetrotting groundwork for a presidential bid is threatened when she falls for Rogan’s newly appointed speech writer, and she is forced to choose between her ambition and her feelings. 

Charlotte was once Fred’s babysitter, and while he reminds her of her lost youthful integrity, her sense of responsibility slowly rubs off on him.

One time Oscar winner, Theron, demonstrates a deft comic touch alongside her emotional range in a glamorous role, in contrast to her shaven headed warrior in 2015’s Mad Max; Fury Road.

Rogen has to run to keep up with her, and from 2007’s Knocked Up to 2018’s Blockers, he’s well practised at playing a petulant man-child who slowly realises his faults.

Moments of gross out comedy and drug taking are mixed with some political satire and a great running gag about TV stars failing to transition to glorious Hollywood careers, which is especially pointed as there’s a game cameo by former Friends star, Lisa Kudrow.

Alongside many nicely judged pop culture references and a 1990’s soundtrack, Kudrow’s presence adds nostalgic appeal for a middle-aged audience. 

More seriously it attacks the hypocritical prudishness of US media to sex lives of politicians, touches on the limitations of the dating game for women of a certain age and status, and flags up the higher expectations and double standards placed upon them in the public eye.

However director Jonathan Levine treats these issues as additional extras and keeps the pace brisk and the tone comic even as the wheels of romance fall off the passion wagon in time-honoured movie tradition.

This is a movie well worth voting for with your wallet.

YESTERDAY

Cert 12A 116mins Stars 3

This juke box musical romcom is an amiable and safe disappointment from the creative dream team of writer Richard Curtis, and director Danny Boyle.

Gently humorous but shy of laughs, we have every right to expect a much funnier script from the guy who gave us Four Weddings, and something more interesting from the director of Trainspotting.

Watching it is akin to the experience of listening to a coffee shop song cover compilation while leafing through the Boden summer clothes catalogue.

Following a road traffic accident and a global electrical blackout, a part-time busker wakes up to discover he’s the only person in the world with any knowledge of pop group, The Beatles.

Using their songs to become famous, Himesh Patel must choose between global superstardom and the true love of Lily James. The pair are sweet and charming, and in her least annoying big screen performance, US comic actress Kate McKinnon is nicely acerbic as a US music promoter.

As the Beatles had split up before I was born, it’s questionable how many of those under 30 years old are sufficiently well versed in their music to understand the many laboured references and jokes.

So alongside Beatles songs such as the title dirge, Hey Jude, and Back in the USSR, there’s also lots of singer Ed Sheehan, who is game for being the blunt end of some gentle mockery while getting paid to push his unique brand of forgettable pop which seems ever more insignificant in this company.

Ed’s presence along with James Corden who plays himself, and location work at the Latitude music festival illustrates how middle class and middle-of-the-road this all is.

Boyle contributes typically bold flashes of colour and clearly has had a ball crafting animated visuals to accompany the classic tunes, while riffing on The Beatles film caper, A Hard Day’s Night.

But it’s mostly a greatest hits package of Curtis’ well-worn tunes, so stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

The lead is a tongue tied Englishman who’s oblivious to the fact his gorgeous best friend fancies him, and in order to get him to notice her she has to humiliate herself a couple of times, including at least once in public.

Their mutual vaguely posh friends have ill-defined jobs, nobody speaks like a real person, there are public declarations of love, and a last minute dash to a train station.

Curtis has built a career by borrowing heavily from authors such as Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Evelyn Waugh, and here has a written a script about a singer who steals from the biggest pop band of all time, and which suggests having The Beatles in facsimile is better than not having them at all. It’s an exercise in self–justification and Curtis should let it be.