Movie Review - Bad Moms

Bad Moms (2016)

Starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Oona Laurence, Emjay Anthony, Annie Mumolo, Jay Hernandez, David Walton, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Christina Applegate

Directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

I'm not a fan of Hangover-styled comedies where adults act raucous just because they usually can't in their normal lives so admittedly Bad Moms had an uphill battle to work for me, but with its essentially non-existent story, directors and co-writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have crafted one of the worst films of 2016.  Color me unsurprised upon looking at imdb.com that Lucas and Moore were the genius writers behind The Hangover and its sequels -- certainly shows that their quality of penmanship hasn't improved all that much in the past decade as they still mine for comedy in alcohol, drugs, and raunch but in the basest way possible.

The failure of Bad Moms has absolutely nothing to do with the women at its center -- a trio of moms who find their homelives in various states of disarray as their status as "Mom" has taken over all other aspects of their identity.  Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathyrn Hahn are the reasons I stuck with this one for its entirety -- well, that and the fact that I watched it on a long car ride home from vacation and had nothing better to do.  Together, the trio are engaging and really do attempt to make the most out of a bad situation.

That bad situation, however, is simply unsaveable.  Sure, there are moments of levity -- many of them coming from Hahn's carefree, sex-crazed character -- but this film has almost no story to latch onto and its characters are so underdeveloped that it makes its 100-minute runtime feel interminable.  Were it not for the aforementioned cast -- which also includes Christina Applegate in a thankless and underdeveloped villainess role and Oona Laurence and Emjay Anthony as Kunis' kids -- there would've been no way I could've made it until the end.  Acting crazy doesn't always equal laughs as writers Lucas and Moore have more than proven looking at their resumés.  The public has spoken for some reason, though, and their style of pedestrian screenplay seemingly does the trick -- not for this reviewer, however.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Scream 2

Scream 2 (1997)

Starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Liev Schreiber, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jerry O'Connell, Elise Neal, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Omar Epps, and Jada Pinkett Smith

Directed by Wes Craven

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

I always thought that Scream was a solid horror film and, watching it years later, that fortunately still held true upon a recent revisit.  In that review, I mentioned that I didn't remember the next two films in the series with any fondness and I wondered if there was a reason for that.

Well, I'm pleasantly surprised to say that Scream 2 is also a pretty decent horror flick.  Yes, it's essentially the first film rehashed (but that's the point of the story in that a copycat killer is still enacting hell on Sidney Prescott's [Neve Campbell] life after she moved on to college), but it's a solid thriller.  Granted, there aren't as many nifty death scenes, but what keeps the flick afloat is the very game cast.  The return of Courtney Cox's Gale Weathers, David Arquette's Dewey Riley, and Jamie Kennedy's Randy all jump right back into things, expanding upon their characters and actually proving to be more enjoyable in some cases than in the first film.  The addition of Elise Neal as Sidney's best friend, Jerry O'Connell as Sid's boyfriend, and Laurie Metcalf as a podunk local newspaper reporter fascinated by the well-known Gale Weathers are all nice new faces.

Granted, the big reveal at the end is silly and the series loses some of its charm since it somewhat abandons the "poking fun at other horror films" premise, but it was still an enjoyable two hours, so I'll take that.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-