Ed's Review Dot Com

New Line Cinema, Village Roadshow Pictures, 21 Laps Entertainment,

Ice Cube, Charlie Day, Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell, Christina Hendricks, Dennis Haysbert, Dean Norris, JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Kym Whitley, Young Jeezy

Andy Campbell (Charlie Day) is a school teacher on the brink of losing his job due to cutbacks. He’s having a really bad day with a pregnant wife and daughter, plus it’s the last day of school and “senior prank day”. But when he accidentally gets on the wrong side of Strickland (Ice Cube) who is the toughest teacher in the school by costing him his job, Strickland challenges Andy to a “Fist Fight” in the school parking lot at 3PM. Strickland could probably kill him, so he sets about to somehow get out of the fight with the help of some other teachers, but things get really convoluted as things seem to go wrong all day long as he ends up making things worse all around in this comedy also with Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell, Christina Hendricks and more.

This is a comedy movie that has it’s faults. About half way through it my wife made me take it off the TV and move it to my computer when I could watch it with earphones because the loud yelling through-out the movie was driving her nuts. It was really funny in some places, but Charlie Day basically screamed every line, and it did get really annoying after a while. Ice Cube was brilliant as he usually is, but the script wasn’t really that great, and you can only do what you can with what you’re given. There are too many overacted scenes that strike me as hollow, and it’s a bit too silly. They have tried this type of film a number of times, but it’s on par with stuff like Mall Cop or Here Comes the Boom which I also rated pretty good. If you like those Kevin James type movies, then this one might tickle your fancy too. I thought it was funny, but be forewarned that it’s a little slap stick, and a lot malarkey. If you like Three Stooges-like humor, with people chasing other around with an axe, then this is a funny movie, but if over acting, over comfortable volume, and shallow plots drive you nuts, then stay away from this one. I liked it, but I find it hard to recommend this for the masses, know what I mean?

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Regency Enterprises, Wild West Picture Show Productions,

Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne, Max Minghella, JoAnna Garcia Swisher, John Goodman, Will Ferrell, Jessica Szohr, Dylan O’Brien, Josh Gad

Billy McMahon (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Owen Wilson) are salesmen suddenly put out of work when their company shuts down due to the competition from the internet. They find themselves out of work, and not really qualified for anything else. Billy finds a job for them as interns for Google, but this turns into a giant competition. The interns are divided up to teams and then sent out on a quest to gain the most points for their team in a serious of competitions, and only the winning team will be hired. But of course no one wants to team up with these two, since even though they try to hire their tech savvy ignorance at every step, it still is apparent that they can’t complete with the college geniuses they’re up against, so they end up assigned with the group of losers and misfits.

This turned into a new age version of “Revenge of the Nerds” in a way, but I found it much better than I ever expected. There was some real humor in this flick, along with some real heartfelt moments. Immediately everyone rules them out as useless, but the boys prove that experience is an advantage and pretty soon the team looks up to them. With Vince and Owen in the film, obviously the humor is good, and there are some really classic moments. All in all I found this an interesting film, and I had the chance to witness the lifestyle in this film first hand for a week when I was invited to the Microsoft Campus one week back in 1999. I was amazed at the amenities on campus and had the same kind of wide eyed wonderment that Nick and Billy felt when I saw what life is like in this world. The purpose is to keep these genius kids busy and to have them never leave the campus. It’s a great place to live, and basically anything thing you could want or need is available here. Though it’s unbelievable, that’s a lot like how it really is. This movie was much stronger than I expected, mostly due to the supporting cast which did an excellent job. Not to take away from Vince and Owen, they give us just what we expect from them, but the rest of the cast was unexpected. One other unique thing about this film. This is my very first ever experience renting a film from RedBox. I’ve been wanting to do that for years and years, but I’ve never really needed to make a DVD run like the old Wherehouse and BlockBuster days, but it was a good experience. This movie got caught up in the “Long Wait” problem at NetFlix as I didn’t get it on release day, and soon was buried down in the queue. I like to review new releases as soon as possible after release to give you a heads up on what I like and what I don’t, but this one slipped through the cracks. I think I will utilize the RedBox thing more often in the future. It was a nice experience.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog