Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

When Transformers came out in 2007, I said it was one of the great summer blockbuster spectacles, a statement I stand by. The epic sense of awe and wonderment, coupled with eye-popping special effects and breathless combat scenes made for some grand entertainment. Yes, it was dumb as dirt, and yes it had some moments I found to be racially insensitive, but overall I was very entertained. The one thing I hoped for from a sequel was more screen time for my favorite OG Transformer, Starscream. So two years later, as I sat through the sequel - Revenge of the Fallen - I was dumbstruck. The things that didn't work in the first film were amplified to the extreme, while the things that I found to be so great were completely abandoned. Flabbergasted, all I could do was repeat to myself "At least they gave Starscream something to do."

It's hard to know where to begin when something goes this wrong. Perhaps I should mention first the most surprising thing: the action is terrible. If memory serves correct, there are three big set pieces: one at the start of the film, one about an hour in, and another at the end. None are very well done, and none top the final battle in the first film. What makes these kinds of battles work is adding a human scale to it. Robots fighting robots in the desert gives you no sense of scale or feeling of impending danger. A lot of people are complaining that you can't tell the robots apart, so there is no investment in them when they fight. I disagree. There is no investment because 90% of the robots fighting are ones we've never seen before, they never speak, and they are never given a name. Who are they? I have no clue. I wanted to care, I really did, but Michael Bay had no investment in these characters, so it became impossible for me to. But at least they gave Starscream something to do.

The characters in the first film weren't great, but they were serviceable. Here they have all been reduced to comedic sidekicks. No exaggeration - all of them. We have the wacky roommate (1), the wacky parents (2,3), the wacky washed up federal agent (4), the wacky pet robot that humps peoples' legs (5), the wacky college professor (6), and the wacky illiterate twin robots (7,8). What a breath of fresh air it was then to have Tyrese show up and not not be wacky at all, but instead wisecracking. Michael Bay knows a film's limits: 8 wacky characters is great, but 9? That might have been pushing it. I honestly couldn't tell you why Sam's roommate stays in the film for as long as he does. About halfway into the film I found myself saying "we have other sources of comedic relief, why are you still here?" Shia LaBeouf, who was really pretty charming in the first one, is absurdly bad here as Sam. Granted, he has to act like he is losing his mind, and that is rarely a graceful thing to perform, but he is especially bad at it. Megan Fox, by virtue of the fact that she can't act, comes off the best in this film. Megan Fox should never, ever be the best actor in a film. But at least they gave Starscream something to do.

Let's jump back to those illiterate twins for a moment, shall we? If you go back to my Transformers review in July 2007, I called that film out for some potentially racist moments. This film blows that one out of the water. Mudflaps and Skids are two illiterate, slang spewing, rambunctious robots with droopy faces and big ears (one even has a gold tooth). Much humor is derived from their ignorant pratfalls. Hey, they don't know any better, how funny! If you hear one thing about this movie, it will certainly be about these two. It is an unfortunate fact that something so regressive could exist in a film that will surely be so huge. Some of those involved with the film have made the argument that the Transformers learn our language through the internet, movies, and TV, and that these two could be seen as a reflection of our own society. So maybe Mudflaps and Skids have just been watching too many Michael Bay movies! But at least they gave Starscream something to do.

I think the thing I hate the most about the majority of sequels is this assumption of familiarity. In the first film there is a sense of discovery as we learn about the characters, what the implications of the story are, and what kind of world they live in. Sequels, like this one, assume that we don't care about that sense of discovery anymore and just throw us into the film. Sometimes it works (The Bourne movies), but usually it doesn't. The plot here is absolutely ridiculous, and really, it wasn't the plot in the first one I liked, either. It was fun to see how people reacted to giant robots, as well as how the robots reacted to us. It was exciting to see the Transformers actually transform from time to time. Here they just remain in robot form the entire time, unless they are moving from one location to another. Remember that great scene in the first where Starscream blends in with the other jets, then suddenly transforms, shoots a few, then turns back into a jet so no one can tell which one is him? Yeah, none of that here. It's just wall to wall mindless noises, bad jokes, and an incoherent plot for two and a half hours. But at least they gave Starscream something to do.

And since we're on the subject, how about Starscream, my one hope for salvation in the film? Well, for starters, he is nothing like the Starscream I love. Gone is his nefarious machinations to overthrow Megatron and rule the Decepticons. Instead, he has been turned into a beaten dog, always abused by Megatron for no good reason. He has no personality, except to grovel at appropriate times. When Bay needs a Decepticon to do something for the plot, it is usually Starscream who does it. That's nice in theory, but often it amounts to no more than following Sam or firing upon enemies. Sure, he's physically in the film a lot more and has actual lines, but he's really not doing anything of interest or consequence. But at least they gave Starscream... well, no I guess they kind of didn't even do that.

Moon

Moon is the perfect example of how to take a simple idea and explore all of its implications. If there were an energy source on the moon that could sustain Earth, how would we go about harvesting it? Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, a man sent to the moon to mine for that energy source and send it back home. Why is one man doing this job alone? Why, indeed! That is part of the fun of Moon - things you think are plot holes initially are really just ideas for first time director Duncan Jones to riff on. When all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, it's a film that makes almost too much sense. If it sounds like I am being coy on what exactly this film is about, you win the big prize. To really say anything about this film's plot would be to give away too much (indeed, the trailer itself already gives away more than I think you should know). Instead, all I can offer is an analysis of its pieces and hope that when you see the film, this review will make sense.

Like I said, Sam Rockwell takes center stage, and he is amazing. There are no other actors in Moon for him to interact with, which makes his performance all the more impressive. Sure, he has a robot companion voiced by Kevin Spacey, but that's just a special effect. No, this is Rockwell from start to finish, and he is never dull. His performance explores many different facets of the character, and by film's end you really feel like you've gotten to know Sam Bell from the day he arrived on the moon until his departure three years later. Kevin Spacey as the robot companion complements this performance perfectly, as I quickly forgot it was Spacey and just accepted it as another character in the film.

The ideas this film presents are what make it work so wonderfully. It's fun for a film to plant an idea in your head and then let you as an audience member interact with that idea on your own. Director Jones never tells you how to feel about the events in the film, nor does he give you a definite reason for why things are happening exactly, but investing a bit of your own interpretation into it makes it all the more satisfying. The film is never really confusing or overwhelming - a problem a lot of hard science fiction films can have - but it has just the right level of thoughtfulness to keep you constantly engaged. It's a film that wraps everything up while still leaving you with things to discuss afterwards.

I really enjoyed what this film had to offer, and I hope it expands to a wider audience in the coming weeks. In some ways it recalls Danny Boyle's Sunshine from 2007. That was another hard science fiction film that really tried to grapple with some ideas while balancing a level of fun. But where Sunshine lost confidence in its ideas in the final act by dissolving into a horror film, Moon embraces its core concept to the end. For those who like hard science fiction films, it's probably the best to come along in a few years.

Up

Ever since they released Cars, Pixar has been going down a more and more unmarketable road. A rat who cooks and a post-apocalyptic robot are not easy sells to children. Even harder to market, one would assume, is an elderly widower. If I had been given a window to the future a few months ago and had seen that Up, Pixar's tenth feature, had become their lowest grosser yet, it would not have surprised me. Having now seen the film, I can't imagine it not being one of their bigger hits. Filled with adventure, humor, bright colors and likable characters, this is one of the most accessible Pixar films to date.

That said, you take the good with the bad. For all the fun to be had, it feels like a slight creative step backwards from both WALL-E and Ratatouille. The story and the thematic arcs are just as good as those films, but it seems to have a heavier emphasis on the action than those two did. Up comes very close to finding that balance between entertainment set pieces and character development, but the scales ultimately tip towards the former. Which is fine if that's what you're looking for, as there are some breathless moments to be had (especially in 3D).

The film opens on a sequence that ranks right up there with the best things Pixar has ever done. We follow Carl Fredricksen from childhood - where he meets the love of his life Ellie - through to her death. In ten minutes we get their entire life story, the struggles and hardships, the laughs and joys. It's a daring way to give us insight to who Carl is, but it really works. From there Carl decides to take that trip he and Ellie always dreamed of: to Paradise Falls in South America. So Carl ties thousands of balloons to his house and sets sail. Only catch is Russell, a local child, is on his front porch. The two set out on a quest to find Paradise Falls, but the story takes some surprising and silly turns from there.

When the film wants to be serious, it is. Carl is a complex and fascinating character, and even Russell has some great development. But the film has a strong sense of humor, found largely though the animals the characters encounter along the way. A pack of talking dogs are responsible for a lot of goofy moments (the talking is dealt with in a way that makes sense in the world these characters exist in), including a scene in which dog fighting takes on a literal meaning. And as the film progresses we get bigger and bigger set pieces, culminating in one very vertigo inducing fight scene that had me tense throughout. But always hanging over the characters' heads is that house of Carl's, there to remind him and us of why he came there in the first place. While the film can be silly, I liked that no one spelled out what the film is about. That's a bad habit a lot of family films have, even WALL-E, so that touch of subtlety was greatly appreciated.

Visually this is another Pixar stunner. Director Pete Docter uses color and depth of field to convey how confined Carl's life has become, and how much it flourishes when he leaves home. There are moments where we simply see the house floating along that are breathtaking. And the character design has become so good, I forgot these were animated characters. Pixar has wisely realized that animated humans are more sympathetic if they aren't too realistic looking, as they avoid any uncanny valley issues by stylizing their human characters. At the same time, the aforementioned dogs are almost lifelike and very adorable. Up embraces a slightly more cartoony visual vibe, and it really suits the story.

I certainly enjoyed Up quite a lot, and I really can't blame Pixar for trying to reel themselves back in a bit after two challenging pictures. They've certainly earned the right to let loose and have a little fun. When this film wants to challenge you, it does, and when it wants to have fun, it does that too. My tastes tend a bit more towards the quieter moments, but kids will definitely love the fun moments a lot. It's certainly the most widely appealing film they've made since The Incredibles, and I can't imagine anyone not having a good time with Up.

Terminator Salvation

With the decade coming to a close, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how cinema has grown and changed over the previous ten years, and all the amazing new talents that have emerged in that time. To think, prior to this decade people like Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, and Paul Greengrass had yet to really enter the fray. Meanwhile people like Peter Jackson, Alfonso Cuaron, and Guillermo del Toro finally emerged from the shadows to create major visions. We've had a lot of amazing new talent this decade, but the good must always go with the bad. If the previously mentioned were among the most important new talents of the decade, then who were the worst? Well, I think you can already see where I am going with this since this is my Terminator Salvation review. Director McG started his film making career at the start of the decade with Charlie's Angels, a bad film with little redeeming it aside from Bill Murray. It was followed by the somehow worse sequel (sans Murray), and more recently he made a film I did not see, We Are Marshall. Now maybe that film is a winner, but between his first two films and this new Terminator movie, he has demonstrated that his talent is exceedingly limited, and what's more, he probably drove the final nail into the coffin for this venerable franchise.

I'm a pretty big fan of the Terminator movies, and I enjoy all three for different reasons. The first one is a fun B-movie treated with the utmost respect by its director. T2 is the epitome of how to make a sequel, something James Cameron seems to excel at better than any of his peers. Even the third one, often unfairly maligned, has some good moments. I particularly respected its decision to not allow the franchise to become repetitive by ending it with the often mentioned Judgement Day. It has been six years since the last film (actually the shortest gap between sequels, amazingly) and the franchise has finally moved forward into the future war that has long been discussed. It seems like a pretty hard concept to mess up, but somehow McG and company do an admirable job of getting everything wrong.

We know that Skynet has become self aware and killed most of humanity. We know that John Connor has been told since childhood that he would be the key to humanity's salvation when he grew up. We know that Kyle Reese must be sent back in time to save Connor's mom from the wrath of a terminator. Beyond that, this future has been largely unwritten. The filmmakers could have done practically anything here, free from the confines of the previous films which were about characters fulfilling destiny. So it's pretty insulting that this film fails to move the story forward at all. Even remotely. This movie could have been skipped entirely, we could have moved right along to film 5, and the whole plot here could have been explained in passing by a character in just a sentence or two. Except, the events here are so inconsequential here that no one would feel the need to speak that sentence to sum up these events. Basically Connor finds out that Skynet wants to kill Kyle Reese before he goes back in time to save Sarah Connor. Connor rescues Reese and blows up a Skynet base. No forward movement of plot, no character development - that's it.

What made all the other movies so great was that they were about something. Underneath the great action set pieces was actually humor and thought. Could a person change their fate if they knew the future? What was the difference between man and machine? Could a machine be taught to be more human? Questions like those were at the heart of the original trilogy. We think maybe this film will try to explore something similar when we are introduced to Marcus (Sam Wothington), a man who donates his body to science while he is on death row. Fifteen years later we learn he is part machine, part human. Surely interesting things will come of this, right? Nope. Marcus thinks he's human, finds out he's a machine, and soundly rejects his machine side. What was especially odd about this was Connor's reaction to Marcus. Connor twice met sentient machines prior to Judgement Day, and both times he tried to show those machines how to be more human - he didn't want to believe they were totally devoid of any humanity. Here, when he meets Marcus, he immediately wants to kill him without any second thought. Yet unlike those previous machines, Marcus wants to be human, already has semblances of human emotions. One of the most human of emotions is compassion, yet Connor has been robbed of his for some reason in this film, perhaps only because it serves the story.

The acting is across the board bad, with maybe the exception of Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. Christian Bale is always gruff as Connor, radiating a deadness inside himself that makes you not care if he lives or dies. What happened to that rebellious kid from T2 that we all loved? Sam Worthington is being proclaimed as the next big star. His next film will be Avatar, James Cameron's long awaited new film. It seems likely that McG saw that Cameron had faith in this new talent, so he grabbed him as well. I'm hoping that it is McG's fault that Worthington is so wooden, because if not, he really has about as much of a future as Hayden Christensen did post Star Wars. And I have a gripe about the women in this film. James Cameron has always been particularly great at developing strong, dynamic women in his films. McG seems to laugh at the notion that women can be strong characters. By my count there were four women in this film. One is a mute child who is an obvious nod to Newt from Aliens. She does nothing and is completely useless. Jane Alexander plays the leader of an outpost hidden in the desert. She is snatched by robots almost instantly. Bryce Dallas Howard is Connor's wife. The only words to come from her mouth are exposition. Finally, Moon Bloodgood is supposed to be our badass heroine here. She isn't. We first meet her stuck in a tree, and she needs help getting down from Marcus. Later she is attacked by a group of marauders, and again needs help defending herself. Then she leads a robot right into camp, unknowingly playing the Judas to Connor's Jesus. Why can't McG make these women strong, interesting, or realistic?

If nothing else, this film has great sound and special effects. I appreciated that they tried to incorporate practical effects whenever possible. And while the cinematography is flat and the art direction is bland, there were one or two action scenes that McG handled well. The problem was they held no weight behind them because the characters were so poorly conceived. If I don't care whether anyone lives or dies, I'm not going to be invested in scenes of peril (not to mention the bigger problem of not caring if humanity wins this war). They also found an interesting way to incorporate Arnold Schwarzenegger in the picture, and it seems likely that special effects have gotten to the point where he could appear in any Terminator film from here to the end of time and no one would really question it.

If you like loud dumb action films, this might be passable to you. If you want an actual Terminator film out of it, it's really bad, so temper you expectations and you will not be as disappointed as I was. I'd say that objectively, Wolverine was a worse movie, but this was a bigger disappointment because I expected more from it. Riddled with plot holes (how does Skynet know about its many attempts to kill John and Sarah Connor if they aren't going to attempt them for ten more years?), filled with wooden acting, and conceived as a place holder more than an advancement of a story, there's just so little here to enjoy. If there ever is another film in the series, I can only hope Cameron or someone of his ilk comes along and finishes this story in the right way.

Star Trek

I am not what you would call a dyed-in-the-wool Trekkie. Growing up I watched a decent amount of The Next Generation, and I've seen all the movies, liked maybe half of them. That said, I genuinely felt that Star Trek as a franchise had a great deal of potential, so I've always routed for it. After two dismal movies and a failed TV show, it certainly seemed like the franchise was done. So it was a bit of a surprise to see J.J. Abrams come along so soon and try and reboot from square one. In principal I was behind him, but as details emerged I was quick to make judgements. What Abrams was creating did not look like it was embracing the potential I thought this series had. Between the young cast, the overly slick visuals, and the reliance on nonstop action in the trailers, it resembled Starship Troopers minus the satire more than it did Star Trek. This was Star Trek aimed at teens with short attention spans, not fans of great story telling and nuanced characters! At some point last year I wrote off Abram's Star Trek. I knew it would bomb, be openly mocked by critics and fans, and be the final nail in the coffin for this franchise on its deathbed. Today I stand before you humbled: I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

This isn't to say that the things I feared were completely unfounded (there is maybe one action beat too many, and the visuals can be distractingly flashy in spots). But the amount this film gets right is enough to put a smile on any movie lover's face for two hours. What's great for fans is that this film does not disregard the past 40 years of history. Instead, through the franchise's favorite gimmick - time travel - we get characters of old going back to meet their young selves, and setting them on a new, alternate path. This idea works, but it would only be worth it if we can still recognise and enjoy these characters as we always have. This is where my biggest fear came in, as the casting was what made me so apprehensive.

Chris Pine, basically unknown until now, is Kirk. Smart move from the start giving it to a newcomer, as any familiar face would make it hard to buy this guy as someone audiences have known for decades. But Pine was faced with a great challenge: he had to play a character that was both iconic, and known to be played a bit... hammy. We all know Shatner has a very distinctive acting style that might not gel with a modern reboot, so how would Pine handle it? Well, he smartly embraced the attitude of Kirk while jettisoning everything else. He doesn't look or sound like Kirk, but he acts like him, and that makes all the difference. Pine doesn't hesitate from moment one. His charm, charisma, and slight edge of danger is on full display, and he feels like a genuine star. I suspect he will breath a lot of life into this franchise with his confidence in the role.

The rest of the cast embrace their roles, and each have at least one moment to shine. Zachary Quinto looks like he was born to play Spock, the resemblance is uncanny. He infuses Spock with a level of emotion not really known to the character before, but it is set up in such a way that it makes sense. Karl Urban was the real revelation to me. His casting made no sense at the time, but he is Dr. McCoy. With everyone else you would inevitably get moments of "That isn't really character X." We hear McCoy before we see him and I was already taken back to the classic films. Perhaps my favorite performance. On the other hand, Anton Yelchin and John Cho don't have a lot to do, but they don't foul it up (although they rely a bit too much on Chekov's accent being silly. Yes, he says Wulcan instead of Vulcan, we get it). Zoe Saldana as Uhura, gets the biggest upgrade from the original. It really feels like she will have a lot to do in this iteration, which is great. And finally, Simon Pegg as Scotty. Not introduced until near the end, he is a fun presence, to be sure, and it will be interesting to see him grow into the role.

Star Trek has a wonderful balance between character moments and epic scale. This film feels bigger than any other in the franchise by far. At the same time, we get great comedic moments and character defining scenes. When a planet is destroyed, it isn't just used as a way to amp up the suspense, but also as a way to develop a character who is affected by the incident. It is a balance that Abrams is able to hold onto for the whole film. While it would have been nice to have a bit more of the philosophy and big ideas that the franchise was known for in the past, it has just enough of that to get by, with the potential for more in the future. Once a doubter, now a believer, I cannot wait to see where Abrams takes his crew next.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

No franchise can sustain itself for more than a few movies without reinventing itself (James Bond, Star Wars). There is a reason for this: it becomes increasingly difficult to sustain that which made something fresh and exciting over multiple films. I can think of no 4th entry in a franchise that was just as good as the originals. So it is little surprise that X-Men Origins: Wolverine does not live up to the potential of the X-Men franchise. No, the surprise comes from just how slogged down and dull this excursion is. How do you take the most interesting character in your franchise and make him boring and even pathetic?

The first and most obvious problem is that this is an origin story for a character whose origin isn't very interesting. Yes, his past was a mystery in the other films, but that is what made him fascinating. His journey to discover who he was one of the delights of the original trilogy. What makes Jason Bourne work so wonderfully is that we don't ever get a whole movie dedicated to him before he lost his memory. Instead we are given bits and pieces of his past at the same time Bourne is. By focusing a whole film on Wolverine's past, it removes any allure of mystery the character has. It also shows us that we pretty much already knew what happened to him prior to the first X-Men, so why even bother?

What I suspect was the original plan here was to introduce us to Team X, the covert team of mutants working for the government that Wolverine was a part of. This was going to be a jumping off point for a number of other characters we could follow. And to the film's credit, they got a number of classic characters and some pretty good actors to play them. The film then squanders this by not devoting any time to the team, as well as (SPOILERS) killing them all off (/SPOILERS). Wonderful character actors like Dominic Monaghan and Kevin Durand are given great characters and then wasted completely. Ryan Reynolds, who blew me away last month in Adventureland is set up to be a major part of the movie, only to immediately disappear. When he does resurface, he is robbed of his best quality. And the always wonderful Liev Schreiber is given the role of Sabertooth, who is apparently Wolverine's brother, but he never gets to anything other than yell and kill. There seems to be so much going on underneath the skin of the character, but Schreiber is never allowed to explore it. A movie about the relationship between these brothers would have been so much more interesting, but Fox wrongly thought audiences only want explosions and yelling, not character development.

The biggest sin of a major summer blockbuster like this is to be boring, but that's exactly what this film is. The action is pedestrian at best, lazy at worst. And dear lord the CGI is absolutely awful. Where did they spend all their money if they can't even make Wolverine's claws look real? Watch for a scene in the bathroom of a farmhouse and you will see some of the worst special effects in a major movie in many a years. I suspect the lazy action comes from a tension between director Gavin Hood and the studio. Hood is best known for the Oscar winning character drama Tsotsi, so it would make sense that he would want to focus more on the characters and less on the action. The studio must have pushed him to amp up the action, but they hired a guy who is not familiar with the basics of filming action sequences. The result is a film that is neither exciting nor especially deep in characters, as it couldn't choose between the two or fuse them into one cohesive product.

There just isn't much to really say about such a minor film like this. It's clear no one involved was very passionate about their work (except maybe Schreiber, who probably saw an opportunity to make an interesting character before it was neutered), and that lack of passion wears off on the audience. Will X-Men Origins: Wolverine kill this franchise? I think it just might. Not quite up to Batman and Robin levels of awful, it still clearly has nothing but contempt for the fans and the franchise. You can do a lot better than this film, and by summer's end I suspect this will be a minor forgotten note buried under bigger and better films.

Observe and Report

I find my biggest difficulty in reviewing movies is that I have a hard time coming to an immediate and fully formed opinion of something. Most films, especially great ones, take time to fully grasp. When I saw There Will Be Blood, I did not review it because I didn't know what to make of it yet. I now think it is among the greatest films of the decade. I find myself at a loss for where to begin on my Adventureland review, a film I just saw and absolutely loved. So it is with luck that I am able to examine Observe and Report with a bit of distance, having seen in a while back and let it sit with me for a few months. Had I reviewed it at the time, I know I would have focused too much on a few problems it had at the expense of some really great stuff. By no means a great movie overall, it is one that deserves a fair bit of credit for being something you don't see a lot of in mainstream films today: ballsy.

Now, there are two kinds of risky movies: those that make you say "I can't believe they just did that," and those that you actually can't believe they just did that. An example of the first kind is There's Something About Mary, which pokes you with a stick to get a response. Observe and Report is an example of the second, a film which breaks the stick in half and beats you with it. Both have their place, and this film is certainly not for everybody. That said, there is a cathartic feeling to be had when witnessing something that is, at times, wonderfully transgressive.

The film follows Ronnie (Seth Rogen) as he patrols his local mall in search of a flasher run amok. But Ronnie is a man with serious mental issues, more akin to Travis Bickle than Paul Blart. He pines for oblivious makeup saleswoman Brandi (Anna Faris), gets into feuds with a local Indian vendor (Aziz Ansari), and antagonizes detective Harrison (Ray Liotta). It's a film not as much about plot as it is about tone, and the tone can be downright unpleasant. Director Jody Hill made a name for himself with The Foot Fist Way and the recent HBO comedy Eastbound and Down, and he is known for examining unsympathetic characters in funny ways. Here he does it again, and either you can accept it or you will hate the whole movie.

For me, I found it pretty easy to accept such an unbalanced protagonist. I had a harder time accepting Seth Rogen as that character. I am all for actors playing against type, but Rogen is perhaps a bit too likable as Ronnie. It's the only part of the movie where I felt they were trying to tone down the viciousness of the comedy by having someone a bit safe play the part, as opposed to using someone like Danny McBride, who seems like he was meant to play the part and would have done it absolute, unflinching justice. But then, perhaps that would have been beyond the pale for most audiences. Rogen does have a vulnerable side to him that works especially well in the scenes with his mother, so it is a bit of a trade off.

People might expect Anna Faris to be a standout, but she is relatively minor in the film and often a bit grating (albeit intentionally so). The real supporting standout is Michael Pena of Crash fame. Who knew he had this in him? His character is hilarious but initially extremely ancillary. It is a pleasant turn of events when he suddenly comes to the forefront and steals the film from everyone else. He turns out to be just as screwed up as the rest of the cast, but in such a fun way he almost seems to be from another movie. His final scene in the film is one of the most memorable, as well as a wonderful visual experience. I could see Pena becoming something akin to John C Reilly, a man known for his brooding turns in dramas that finds his real calling in comedy. Let's hope so, because he really is wonderful here.

I keep saying this film finds comedy in breaking conventions, but I fear that by saying that I have already taken away a bit of the film's power. You don't expect this film to go the places it does. Ultimately, I need to explain what it is about this film that makes it stand out, and that transgressive comedy is what makes it unique. It can be uneven at times, but when it works, it really works. I usually don't say people absolutely need to see a movie I only give 3 stars to, but this is a film that demands to be grappled with, flaws and all. You will definitely want to talk about it after. I've had about 6 months to think on the film, and I can't shake the fact that Observe and Report has perhaps the funniest, most unexpected moment I have ever see in a film. I do not say this lightly. In fact, that's a statement I don't think I've ever said before. But there it is: I laughed for so long after one scene in this movie that the film was over before I completely regained my composure. And what's so wonderful about it is that I know that for every person laughing hysterically, there will be another shaking their head is shock as they head for the exit.