“Movie 43″ Is An Apocalyptic Abomination
Opening with an apparently Justin Bieber-influenced Dennis Quaid making a desperate pitch to a movie studio middleman (Greg Kinnear), Movie 43 uses this as a launchpad to offer an assortment of shocking sketches chock full of A-list actors and actresses awash in poop jokes and dick jokes and fart jokes and more poop jokes in a striking effort to expose Hollywood for the way it routinely mistakes lowbrow aimlessness for clever hilarity. And just when you suspect it has gone and oddly forgotten the projectile vomit demographic, it offers a closing credits sequence that both mocks the sophomoric nature of the closing credits sequence itself and fulfills its projectile vomit quotient via an animated dog. Classic.
Uh, at least, I assume this is how the producers and directors responsible for Movie 43 pitched their film to this cavalcade of stars because otherwise I have no earthly idea what would have propelled Oscar winner and Oscar nominee, respectively, Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman to sign on for a sketch in which their blind date turns notably awkward when he is revealed to have a scrotum dangling from his neck that no one but her seems to notice or why Kristen Bell, a talented young comedienne, would have yearned to play a bit part that exists solely for Jason Sudeikis to sit under a cafe table and ogle her lady parts.
It’s not simply that these ideas are inherently juvenile, though they are, because juvenile can (and has been) funny, it’s that every sketch here is no better than a lifeless Saturday Night Live sketch where their supposed writers identify a single concept and hammer away at it without any idea of what to do with it once it has been presented. Johnny Knoxville kidnaps a leprechaun for Sean William Scott’s birthday. It is, it turns out, a leprechaun that swears every third word and threatens to cut off each guy’s balls. And……that’s it. He keeps threatening to cut off their balls – for five minutes. This sketch was directed by Brett Ratner. But that goes without saying.
The least worst short of the dozen is the single one, tellingly, that refrains from poop jokes and dick jokes and fart jokes and more poop jokes, though, make no mistake, it is foul-mouthed and disturbing. But, featuring Naomi Watts and Liev Schrieber, it has the common sense to employ a set-up and payoff, a skill which strangely seems beyond the grasp of most involved. (To be fair, Anna Faris and Chris Pratt’s short has a set-up and payoff but I will leave you to discover it on your own.) Even the overarching pitch between Quaid and Kinnear, which theoretically is meant to tie this calamity together, just sort of concludes when it hits a brick wall.
Maybe they avoided pesky set-ups and payoffs because, to paraphrase Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, they don’t know how to spell “set-ups and payoffs.” Maybe their sole intent was to break the previously thought-to-be-unbreakable record of The Watch for Most Dick Jokes In One Movie. Maybe they exclusively wanted to cater to the bros before hoes crowd, though the bros sitting to my right and behind me at the theater did not laugh anywhere near as much as one might expect. Maybe all the filmmakers wanted to make quick cash to finance full length features of their own featuring poop jokes and dick jokes and fart jokes and more poop jokes (and projectile vomit).
Let’s end on a positive note. Emma Stone. She saves face, even as she is forced to suck face with Kieran Culkin. Even in dreck that is depressingly beneath her class and grace, she easily settles into the part she is asked to play, rocks every line (“He was a wizard!”), sells every expression and makes you believe that although Movie 43 seems intent on killing comedy that the comedy of Emma Stone cannot be killed. She is just that funny.
Not that the delicate geniuses fortified in the Hollywood Hills who green-lit this flaming piece of trash will ever employ the necessary brain power to figure what the hell to do with her.
16 Comments
This sounds like a big fat F to me, I can’t believe movies like this gets green-lit!
Neither can I, Ruth. Neither can I.
Maybe the writer of this film doubles as the weed dealer for every actor who agreed to appear in this film.
Maybe. It had be SOMETHING! There has to be an explanation!
Nick I agree with Ruth. I woulda gone straight in for the F. Sometimes I think this type of stuff is done n purpose. No other possible explanation.
Yeah, you guys are right. If there ever was a movie deserving of an F, it’s this one. I guess because I was fresh off the paragraph on Emma Stone I didn’t pull the trigger but even though she saves face that doesn’t necessarily mean it should spare the movie from an F.
Most of the time, with such an array of acting talent, I’d be looking forward to a film. Movie 43 is not one of those films!
I think a D- is generous. Of all the hundreds/thousands of movies I’ve seen in theater, this is the first one I’ve ever walked out of. 20 minutes was all I could take. I think I MIGHT have been able to fight through if I was watching it on DVD or HBO or something but the fact that most of the other people in the audience were laughing hysterically throughout just made the experience so much worse. I wanted to weep for America.
I’m a 42 year old educated dude who saw this film during the day with a buddy. I had read the reviews and thought I gotta see this. I experienced it as an art film. Avant garde and mind altering. It felt a bit evil and wrong throughout. But it also felt deeply metaphorical. The movie had balls, and was a release of sorts. It is not much diff than what average guys talk about or think is funny in private. What elevates this to a piece of art is succeeding to get a-listers to do and say these embarrassing, absurd and deeply undignified things. I do believe that each piece has a message. Btw I do not smoke weed. Again the film was an audacious experiment that makes u squirm and marvel. Brave is the word that comes to mind. Brave new world. Strap in folks.
Any movie is open to interpretation, obviously, and every viewer is entitled to his/her opinion and I’m glad if there are people out there finding value in it, but, sorry, speaking only for myself, it just doesn’t hold weight. I think the movie COULD have been an avant garde damning of Hollywood – which is what I was attempting to convey with that initial paragraph – but the manner in which the film sees through its framing device (if you can call it that) I don’t think backs up that claim.
You can’t just toss a bunch of crudeness up on the screen, do nothing with it and then sit back and expect to be congratulated for it. I think art – real art – is trickier and tougher than, say, the next “Jackass” movie tipping over an outhouse with Meryl Streep in it.
I never argued it was a damning of Hollywood. I think it was just a playfully daring collection of bizarrely offensive sketches designed to be bizarre and offensive in a way nothing else has. When I’m alone with my homies the humor gets bizarre and offensive and we call that Tuesday. When that humor and subject matter goes up on the silver screen with a list actors I call that synthesis. As an actual artist myself by trade, and an an advanced degree holder in the arts from Northwestern University, I don’t attribute the word art lightly. I can see why people will be offended — it’s unpleasant to sit thru. It seems on the surface to trivialize or even perpetuate “bad energy” or base attitudes. What I experience is the opposite. The film trusts us and is letting it all out. It trusts that we won’t take it the wrong way. It wants the kind of intimacy we men and some women have behind closed doors. We can have raunchy or evil thoughts or jokes — we all have them. It doesn’t make us bad people. It makes us human. Putting “human” up on screen can’t be bad. It’s a freeing and very hip film. I’m pretty sure the initial panning will be but a small blip in an illustrious future. The idea that it makes critics so uncomfortable is revealing more about today’s critics than about the film itself. I’m still trying to figure out what that is.
The film is a hijacking, an assault. It is close cousin to other daring statements, think pink flamingos, aristocrats, de Sade, punk rock, it Shares the spirit of rebelliousness and taboo. I could watch ten more sketches in this style. Kudos to all the actors for their guts. Don’t look back.
My son is 12 and I wouldn’t let him see this, but I already know he’d love it. His whole generation will. Not because the world has changed, but because film is changing to meet the raw sensibilities of the primal world. Its getting closer to the truth. Get out of the way if u can’t lend a hand, the times they are a’changin’
A fair analysis. And I could certainly see what you’re talking about in the “homeschool” sketch, that was the one that did work for me in terms of both shock & storytelling. The other sketches, though, aside from whatever their bravery or their intent did not and that’s why I find your punk rock comparison particularly apropos because that is a genre of music for which I have never cared. It’s fine if “Movie 43″ is a rebellion. Anyone who wants to join it is welcome to. God bless ‘em. I’ll join a different one.
That was a supercool response. Thanks so much, I totally see your point on all counts. Helps me understand this polemic a little better.
Wow talk about a wonderful discussion derived from a movie that most people would deem as completely trivial and not worth any intellectual investment. I guess that’s why Movies are so cool
Choked her out, huh? And ran away? Big Brave Sexy Man. *gag*Report this comment as spam or abuse
Have to completely disagree, i saw it with 3 friends and we laughed all the way threw. So did a 60% full cinema!!!!!
Trackbacks