R, 1 hr. 55 min. Directed By:
Seth MacFarlane. Release Date:
Jun 29, 2012.
I have something that I recite every once in a while that I call my Pessimist's Creedo: when you're a pessimist, people never disappoint you and only rarely surprise you. Think about that, just for a minute. You know I'm right.
So when I say, I wasn't disappointment, but I was surprised, realize how much I liked this movie. Particularly I was surprised by the lead players in this piece: Mark Wahlberg had me in palpatations because not only do I worry about his range on stage, he's never, ever funny. Even when he's supposed to be. I still suspect he's the primary reason I hated Date Night. Mila Kunis is a mixed bag, although I think she basically proves the adage practice makes perfect. While I rarely see her not playing a variant of this role, she's done it so frequently now that she's getting really good.
The two of them are really good together, even those he's clearly like twice her age. But, I actually thought this was a great assembly of the Family Guy cast with a few additions and now I think Wahlberg should join them on occasion, possibly as a talking teddy bear that gets up to some shit with Brian and/or Stewie.
There are a few things that weren't great: in many ways, I kind of felt like this was just another episode of Family Guy. The only big player from the show not in this movie was Seth Green. They pulled out all the stops, mostly in folks I didn't know by name, but I recognized by voice after years of hearing them do voice overs. So, if you like MacFarlane's shows, you'll like this movie. The humor is basically identical.
Also, it would have been awesome if they could have thrown us a curve. The story is so obvious that it's like being on the freeway where signs are indicating that you're going to have fewer lanes up ahead. Me and a ouija board could have predicted the last half of the movie with little effort.
That being said, I have every intention of adding this to my collection. I'm not averse to comedy of the absurd so long as it isn't over the top, and this isn't. But, I'm left with one final question: which is more absurd, the teddy bear swearing or Patrick Stewart swearing...?
