by Bennett Campbell Ferguson
Above: Nick Frost fights for survial in this sci-fi comedy extravaganza
A potent and disappointing
film. Director Edgar Wright (whose last
venture was “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” a masterful satire of geek romance)
reteams with muse and co-writer Simon Pegg, who stars as a drunken half-wit
named Gary King. As a teen, Gary once
attempted to consume a pint at twelve different pubs in one night…but didn’t
make it. Now, reunited with his boyhood
friends, he’s determined to finish the job and bring some “meaning” to his
life.
This sounds like a perfect set up for a “men behaving
badly”/“The Hangover”-esque comedy. And
while there are some shenanigans of that nature, the movie is a strange mix—it
combines crude humor with midlife male melodrama (in a climactic scene, Gary
sobs sincerely about his suicide counseling) and bizarrely, violent scenes
involving murderous alien robots. The
result is a movie that is startlingly unfunny and off-kilter—proof that it may
be too early to hail Mr. Wright as a genius.
But the conclusion (which suggests that a world in which humanity is
stripped down to its basest instincts might be a healthier, happier one) is
intriguing and if the movie never solicits a laugh, it does summon forth the
slightest, smallest tear.
No comments:
Post a Comment