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Wedding
Crashers
Cert: 15
Starring: Owen
Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams, Isla
Fisher, Christopher Walken, Jane Seymour, Ellen
Albertini Dow
Director: David
Dobkin
Running Time: 119
minutes
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John
Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) are a pair
of ruthless lawyers (is there any other kind?!) who spend their
summers gate crashing weddings, on the prowl for gullible young
women. After picking their unsuspecting prey, they go through a
meticulous repertoire of tricks to get them in the sack: John pretends
to cry during the ceremony, whilst Jeremy makes balloon animals
for children.
Sadly for them, however, they’re about to meet the Cleary
family, who, as our pair of devious legal representatives will
soon find out, are absolutely bonkers…
There are plenty of laughs to be had here, with Vaughn on absolutely
top form as the balloon-bending sexual deviant. An absolutely hilarious
cameo by Will Ferrell (as the wedding crashers’ mentor) is
almost worth the admission fee alone, and a surprisingly good performance
by Isla Fisher (of Home & Away fame) as a sex-mad lunatic offers
further chuckles.
The only one slight grievance I could think of throughout the film
was its length; coming in at just over 2 hours, one can only imagine
that if the film’s editor had been a little more ruth-less,
the film would’ve ended up being snappier, funnier, and slightly
more enjoyable to sit through; in the true spirit of many a best
man’s speech, less is most definitely more!
This minor gripe aside, Wedding Crashers is a
very funny film with some great comedy perform-ances, featuring
two of the most loveable nymphos Hollywood has yet produced. |
Fantastic
4
Cert: PG
Starring: Ioan
Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba, Chris
Evans, Julian McMahon
Director: Tim
Story
Running Time: 105
minutes
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Coming
out on the back of Batman Begins, Fantastic Four has a lot to
live up to. Another recent comic book adaptation, Sin City, also
offered a powerful, gritty, and downright superb take on the
genre. Both of these films, however, share one common trait;
they were dark. Very, very dark. Fantastic Four, on the other
hand, struggles to keep up any near the momentum that the two
aforementioned flicks offered, and one can only presume that
its light, inoffensive, and generally tranquil content is the
one of the main reasons why. Sure, it’s good enough fun,
and essentially, accomplishes what it set out to do. But my main
complaint is that it’s just so…
forgettable.
The plot centres around brilliant scientist, Reed Richards (Ioan
Gruffudd), who seeks help from his one-time colleague Victor
Von Doom (played by Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon) in researching
cosmic radiation. Victor rather dubiously lends him his space
station, but something goes terribly wrong. Reed, his right-hand
man Ben (Michael Chiklis), Reed’s ex-girlfriend Sue Storm
(Jessica Alba) and her brother Johnny are all overwhelmed by
a strange cloud of cosmic unpleasantness.
Of course, this is where all of the super-powers and altered
DNA strands comes into play. After an unfortunate accident involving
Ben, the team get together and save a large number of people,
ensuring a new status as celebrities -- The Fantastic Four. However,
all is not quite as peachy as it initially seems; seeing as the
accident in space has ruined his company, not to mention cost
him billions, Victor Von Doom is out after Reed’s blood,
and seeing as he’s started to develop superpowers himself,
decides to become the Fantastic Four’s nemesis.
The cast are fine, doing the very best with the fairly substandard
plot they’ve got to work with, and the special effects
are naturally astounding. The problem I found was that the movie’s
premise, which I detail above, is pretty much all that happens
in the movie – by the time it’s all been established,
there’s barely 25 minutes left; not nearly enough time
to build up any kind of majestic finale. FF could’ve been
a lot worse, and as a prequel of sorts, it works fine – there’s
just not enough for even the most ardent of comic book fans to
get their teeth in to. |
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