Love, Guaranteed

 Love, Guaranteed (2020)

Starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Damon Wayans, Jr., and Heather Graham

Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

Written by Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - How to Be Single

How to Be Single (2016)

Starring Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Alison Brie, Anders Holm, Damon Wayans, Jr., Nicholas Braun, Jake Lacy, and Jason Mantzoukos

Directed by Christian Ditter

***This film is currently streaming via HBO Now/Go***

I came so very close to stopping How to Be Single at about the halfway point.  In retrospect, I should have followed through with that because it really was a tremendous waste of time, but for some odd reason, Dakota Johnson and Leslie Mann had me oddly engaged in what ended up being a bit of a trainwreck of a movie.  Considering that Leslie Mann landed in the top spot of the Worst Performances of 2014 for The Other Woman, color me surprised that she's one of the reasons I kept this one going, but in this ensemble piece, she shined brighter than many others -- including Rebel Wilson who landed in the top spot of the Worst Performances of 2015.  Unlike Mann, she doesn't redeem herself here.

Enough about year-old awards, though.  How to Be Single takes a look at a quartet of women and their struggles with living life without men.  Dakota Johnson is Alice, a recent college grad who decides to break up with her longterm boyfriend (Nicholas Braun) to explore her options, not because she doesn't love him but because he is the only person she's ever seriously dated.  A new job as a paralegal at a fancy New York law firm has Alice meeting Robin (Rebel Wilson), a rambunctious, carefree, balls-to-the-wall, rowdy single lady who takes the newly unchained, mousy, and subdued Alice out on the town to try and teach her the rules of how to be a single woman.  At night, Alice goes home to her sister Meg (Leslie Mann), an obstetrician who has reached a point in her life when having children seems important with her single status proving to initially be an obstacle.  And then there's Lucy (Alison Brie), a completely superfluous character who spends her days hanging out in a bar looking at dating websites trying to find her true love while womanizer bartender Tom (Anders Holm) begins to pine over her.

While there are moments that work comedically -- however sporadic those moments may be -- How to Be Single also attempts to be serious, particularly in its second half and this doesn't work at all in its favor.  Attempts at mining drama out of unimportant or under-explored issues in the film's second half prove laughable and weigh down the lackluster flick which already suffers from repetitive and uninspired comedic scenes in its first half.  Sure, Dakota Johnson is oddly engaging as the timid Alice who is trying to find herself in the hectic dating landscape of New York City.  Her moments with Leslie Mann as her sister are charming and Mann herself makes the most out of a somewhat underdeveloped/stereotypical character.  However, the two are not enough to save the film from coming close to being a disaster.

I've already mentioned that Alison Brie's character could've been excised from the film with no harm done.  That's no fault of Brie, but her Lucy is completely unnecessary.  And then there's Rebel Wilson who continues to play the same character here that she plays in every other movie.  There's no branching out for her and her shtick has already worn threadbare.  While she's certainly not the sole reason How to Be Single doesn't work, she plays a part in its failure.  Sure, it's not as bad as some recent chick comedy flicks -- the aforementioned The Other Woman or Bad Moms -- but it's not a whole lot better.

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Movie Review - Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6 (2014)

Featuring the voice talents of Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, Alan Tudyk, Maya Rudolph, and James Cromwell 

Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams

Big Hero 6 is Walt Disney Animation's first collaboration with Marvel and while the film looks visually appealing and definitely has its successful moments, it falls into the same trap as most Marvel movies in that the film's final half abandons the importance of story and feels like action sequence atop action sequence.  Quite frankly, one of these days I'll get around to continuing my Disney Discussion and I think I'll save a more thorough summary until that point, however, the general gist of the plot is that young braniac Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) becomes unlikely friends with a robot named Baymax (Scott Adsit) created by his brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney).  As the two bond, Hiro and Baymax uncover a plot by a sinister masked man to utilize some of Hiro's own robotic creations to commit dastardly deeds.

Eschewing the typical fairy tale stories or romances that usually inhabit Disney's animated fare, Big Hero 6 definitely has a different tone especially considering that the film's final half is completely one big battle between Hiro and his group of clever and humorous friends against the masked man whose reveal is supposed to be surprising but is completely obvious to anyone older than ten years old.  Unfortunately, the film isn't subtle in any aspect.  During the opening moments in which better written Disney movies would excel at exposition, Big Hero 6 very bluntly and laughably spells things out for us stating Hiro and Tadashi's back story.  While it sets a bad tone right off the bat, things perk up quite well during the remainder of the film's first and second acts.  Some nice voice acting from all parties -- the lack of "big name" stars is a definite plus -- and animation that is certainly a caliber above average aid Big Hero 6 in overcoming some of its denouement's problems, but it still falls into the 2014 animated credo of "We Must Have a Disappointing Finale" with nary a single release last year ending on a successful note.

I'll hold off on a more in depth analysis for now except to say that the fact that Big Hero 6 won the Best Animated feature Oscar really reveals what a disappointing year 2014 was for what is typically one of my favorite genres.  While I wouldn't hate another Marvel-Disney animated collaboration (and the film is certainly set up for multiple sequels), I hope that a better script creates a more subtle atmosphere for its cast of characters.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Let's Be Cops

Let's Be Cops (2014)

Starring Jake Johnson, Damon Wayans Jr., Rob Riggle, Nina Dobrev, James D'Arcy, and Andy Garcia

Directed by Luke Greenfield

I think I laughed a sum total of three times in the nearly two hour-long Let's Be Cops -- a flick in which two thirty year-old nobodies (Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr) attend a costume party as cops and find that everything becomes infinitely better for them when they wear an officer's uniform.  Little do they expect that their masquerade will soon take a scary turn when they inadvertently mess with a criminal kingpin (James D'Arcy).

Johnson and Wayans Jr. certainly have a chemistry with one another and admittedly they make the flick at least remotely watchable, but the humor here is virtually nonexistent.  When the flick was theatrically released, there was some disgust over the entire concept of the film -- guys pretending to be cops for shits and giggles -- but the only thing offensive here is that they couldn't mine more humor out of this whole ordeal.  If the Jump Street series has taught us anything, idiot cops should be a hoot.  Here, that's unfortunately not the case.

The RyMickey Rating:  D