What do you do when you haven’t got stuck into a great movie for a while, and you’re also mentally preparing yourself to get back into blogging and actually expressing opinions and thoughts on said movies? Switch your brain off and get stuck into 2 sub-par comedies of course!
Has 2017 had a great comedy yet? I’m behind so maybe I’ve missed it, or maybe I’m just losing my sense of humour. We’re definitely owed a few laughs though!
Rough Night (2017)
There’s been a huge rise lately of female-centred comedies, which I am all for of course, but not all are hitting the mark. Rough Night features an all female cast (if we forget about the dead stripper) and even a past female relationship which wasn’t thrown in our faces which I definitely appreciate. However, what could have been a modern day Weekend at Bernies fell rather flat.
The main issue I found with Rough Night was the overall tone. It didn’t know what kind of movie it wanted to be. We’ve all seen the trailer, we know the group accidentally kill a stripper that comes to their home, but that scene itself was actually really dark…
Common sense got thrown out of the window and just when I started to get into the silliness of it all again, things got deep real fast and left me confused again. One thing I’ll say though is it wasn’t the disaster I thought it would be, and I actually quite enjoyed all of the main actresses, even if my beloved Kate McKinnon was a bit over the top. Stay with the credits for this one though, if nothing else made you laugh McKinnon’s song will!
The House (2017)
I was dying to see The House ever since I saw a trailer. I had no visions of it being an outstanding comedy, but I loved the cast so much I was just happy knowing that I’d be able to see them all in something new. In The House, Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell are parents struggling to afford their daughter’s tuition after her scholarship is taken away. They team up with their best friend, Jason Mantzoukas and set up their own casino.
So yeah, the funniest moments are all in the trailer. The plot is wafer thin and it’s predictable throughout. But it’s a fairly short movie by today’s standards at just under an hour and a half, and I’ve certainly spent the same amount of time doing worse things! My Parks and Rec senses were in overdrive in the town hall meeting scene with so many familiar faces, especially with Amy Poehler herself there!
I think my favourite running joke was Will Ferrell’s complete inability to count, or deal with math of any kind to be honest. I don’t know if it was as funny as it seemed to me or if it was one of the few jokes that just so happened to land, but it honestly made me laugh out loud each time. I’m easily amused I think!
How is 2017 doing comedy wise though overall? Are there some hidden gems I should hunt down or look forward to? The Big Sick (2017) was fantastic – but I need a laugh out loud comedy right now!
Both sound really disappointing ultimately. I love a good female comedy, but some get so vulgar I find it very distasteful. It’s a tricky balance to strike!
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It is! Did you see/enjoy Bad Moms? That was one I thought would be too vulgar but it really worked!
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Rough Night looked well, rough… I completely forgot The House Existed.
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Rough was definitely a good choice of words! Yeah…as much as I enjoyed watching The House I’m not sure how memorable it’ll be in 12 months time 😦
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I thought Rough Night mostly suffered from Johannsson as lead. She is just not funny. I don’t know why they cast her in comedies, she wasn’t even believable as Jackman’s lover in Scoop and who the hell can mess up the easiest job in the world like that? Well she can.
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Very good point! I normally can’t stand Johannsson and although she was more tolerable than normal in this, there’s probably at least 10 other actresses I’d cast before thinking of her.
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I actually liked Rough Night quite a bit, a lot more than The House, which for me had the crazier plot of the two. But I must say, comedies aren’t what comedies used to be. 😦
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Rough Night was always going to win for me because of the cast, but Rough Night was so much better than I thought it would be!
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I’ll probably see both of these, but I’m in no rush for either. These reviews may make that wait even longer since they sound about like I expected them to turn out. Sorta. You did raise my expectations for Rough Night a bit.
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They’re the perfect movies to watch when the weather is miserable and you’ve got nothing better to do, and I mean that in the nicest way possible!
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