HOT PURSUIT Review

You know those movies that are easily relegated to comfort food? You know, the ones where things that in the real world would be deathly serious (sometimes literally) and in a movie intended to be nothing more than fluff are dismissed without a second thought? I tend to like these movies more than I should. I enjoy them in a way that I get to turn a blind eye to the real issues of the world or even to thinking critically for a while, but when a movie that is made to make you feel this way can't help but make you constantly think about how awful it is it must be really bad. I mean, no one expects much nutrition from comfort food, but at least it goes down easy. There is neither anything fulfilling or fun about Hot Pursuit, a buddy/road trip comedy that was clearly created in the vein of The Heat from a few summers past by putting two female actors in the lead roles and hoping for the same results. While this was no doubt meant to be the watered down version with Reese Witherspoon playing up the naive, but dedicated cop routine that Sandy Bullock perfected while they flipped the script on the major comic relief of the piece by making her both a criminal rather than a veteran police officer as well as enlisting an actor known more for her looks than anything else. While Melissa McCarthy gets a fair amount of attention for her appearance Sofia Vergara gets that same attention for completely opposite reasons. With Hot Pursuit, Witherspoon's production company, Pacific Standard, is looking to sneak into the summer movie season on the typically quiet second weekend and provide a bit of alternative programming for those not interested in super hero team-ups, but even those who aren't fans of super heroes or comic book movies in general would have more fun at Avengers than they would at a screening of Hot Pursuit. I've never watched Mike & Molly, but I feel like that would be the more apt comparison to a McCarthy project as Hot Pursuit is more akin to watching a punishing half hour comedic sitcom that has been stretched as far as it can possibly go without the laugh track instructing us on when things are "supposed" to be funny.

First Trailer for HOT PURSUIT

As I was saying yesterday after three fairly major trailers were dropped within twenty-four hours of one another-the summer movie season is all but impending and the studios are ready to let us know what ALL of our choices will be this year. The latest is another comedy that will look to fill the slot of the weekend after the opening bow. This was typically reserved for the likes of romantic comedies that serve as fine enough alternative programming to the big-budget, highly anticipated sequel, comic book/superhero/fantasy offering that came the week before. As the rom-com has grown more out of style though that trend has changed over the last few years to include the likes of Dark Shadows and The Great Gatsby with Neighbors last year now setting a trend for what looks like a stomping ground for comedy. This years doesn't necessarily look to be particularly strong as far as edgy or substantial is concerned, but more a safe reincarnation of The Heat that pits two, strong female leads against one another all while concerning a police case. Granted, I know this isn't the same premise, but the concept looks to be similar and you can't blame Warner Bros. or New Line for wanting to capitalize on the success of Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy collaborations by hiring the director of The Proposal and Reese Witherspoon. It's also not a bad idea to get this one out there, make their money and be done before Feig and McCarthy's latest, Spy, even shows up. As for the actual film, it looks to be fine enough even if I don't necessarily care for the pairing of Witherspoon with Sofia Vergara. Witherspoon looks to be having a lot of fun though with Vergara doing her same schtick and if nothing else it looks completely harmless with the possibility of being fun. Hot Pursuit also stars Jim Gaffigan, Robert Kazinsky, Mike Birbiglia, John Carrol Lynch, Richard T. Jones and opens on May 8th.

GODZILLA Review

Admittedly, I have never been a fan or seen much of the supposed entertainment value in what a giant lizard fighting other monsters brings to the table other than spectacle, but for some reason Hollywood feels a need to keep going back to this well to the point it seems they have something they really want to unearth, but can't put their finger on. I was only eleven years old when Roland Emmerich's version of the King of the Monsters hit the screen and for the most part I enjoyed that one with my easy to mesmerize mentality. It has been a long while since I've re-visited that take and was never able to get into the string of films featuring the creature produced by the Toho Co. What has always evaded me is where audiences find substance in this idea that watching a mythological monster, sometimes played up as the lesser of two threats, has anything more to say other than it looks pretty awesome when he fights these creatures, but only if we know the city's they are destroying in the wake of their battles to determine who resides at the top of the food chain are completely abandoned. Otherwise, we just feel bad for the countless lives being lost in one seemingly small motion of this monster rather than being able to enjoy the majesty of what is taking place before us. Coming around to director Gareth Edwards take on the monster though, Godzilla, the marketing did something unexpected and actually had me fairly excited to see what this new film might bring to the table and if the studios may finally have been able to press that button or unearth that value they so desperately are searching for with this property. I guess, if I were to say anything in this introduction without giving specifics away it would be that Edwards has given over to the more serious undertones that were the point of origin for the character in the first place and with that he has crafted a film as much about the story and the impact of the fact Godzilla exists rather than simply producing a film that goes exactly where your instincts want to take you. That the film subverts the obvious ideas and goes in a completely different direction assured me that audiences don't really know what they want when it comes to a Godzilla movie, but would no doubt be satisfied with monster-fighting on an epic scale and while Edwards Godzilla is not the exceptional piece of popcorn entertainment I was hoping for, he still delivers on many levels.