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Why Him? (2016)
Well, what to say about this one? I like the stars well enough: James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mullally, Keegan-Michael Key, but for a comedy I didn't laugh much. Maybe because it's mainly one of those "pain-and-destruction" type of comedies where the laughs are supposed to come from one of the main character's discomfort all through the movie. Sort of like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. You just kind of squirm and feel bad when you're supposed to laugh. Anyway, the plot: Deutch gets her parents to come out to California for Christmas to meet her boyfriend, Franco, who is a rich, Silicon Valley guy, and he immediately grates on them because he has no filter. Meaning he cusses, he talks about Deutch and him having sex, has inappropriate paintings all over the place, has tattoos of the family he's just met all over his body. You get the picture. Then he throws a big birthday bash where the parents meet his even more jarring friends. Cranston's teen son is there also and he bonds with Franco. Mullally starts getting along with Franco. Cranston, who is virtually the only sympathetic person is made the butt of all the movie's jokes and made out to be the bad guy in everyone's eyes and that's hard to deal with as a viewer. But there are lessons to be learned, blah, blah, blah.
I did enjoy Key as Franco's main employee who jumps out at any time to test Franco's martial arts reflexes like The Pink Panther movies with Clouseau and Cato testing each other, but when Cranston mentions the movies to them they don't know what he's talking about. And Cranston says everyday things like, "Well, that's life," and Franco is just awestruck, thinking Cranston made it up on the spot. For a Silicon Valley genius/millionaire, he sure is stupid. Maybe that's the point, I don't know. Okay, every actor does their jobs and acts their parts appropriately but the script is total crap and if you've even seen a handful of movies or TV sitcoms, you know every set-up that's presented and how it will turn out, and even how the movie will end. Not good. The only thing that really worked for me was almost near the very end when
So, that unexpected thing made it funny at the end but still it's not worth the whole ride, in my opinion.
Well, what to say about this one? I like the stars well enough: James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mullally, Keegan-Michael Key, but for a comedy I didn't laugh much. Maybe because it's mainly one of those "pain-and-destruction" type of comedies where the laughs are supposed to come from one of the main character's discomfort all through the movie. Sort of like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. You just kind of squirm and feel bad when you're supposed to laugh. Anyway, the plot: Deutch gets her parents to come out to California for Christmas to meet her boyfriend, Franco, who is a rich, Silicon Valley guy, and he immediately grates on them because he has no filter. Meaning he cusses, he talks about Deutch and him having sex, has inappropriate paintings all over the place, has tattoos of the family he's just met all over his body. You get the picture. Then he throws a big birthday bash where the parents meet his even more jarring friends. Cranston's teen son is there also and he bonds with Franco. Mullally starts getting along with Franco. Cranston, who is virtually the only sympathetic person is made the butt of all the movie's jokes and made out to be the bad guy in everyone's eyes and that's hard to deal with as a viewer. But there are lessons to be learned, blah, blah, blah.
I did enjoy Key as Franco's main employee who jumps out at any time to test Franco's martial arts reflexes like The Pink Panther movies with Clouseau and Cato testing each other, but when Cranston mentions the movies to them they don't know what he's talking about. And Cranston says everyday things like, "Well, that's life," and Franco is just awestruck, thinking Cranston made it up on the spot. For a Silicon Valley genius/millionaire, he sure is stupid. Maybe that's the point, I don't know. Okay, every actor does their jobs and acts their parts appropriately but the script is total crap and if you've even seen a handful of movies or TV sitcoms, you know every set-up that's presented and how it will turn out, and even how the movie will end. Not good. The only thing that really worked for me was almost near the very end when
WARNING: spoilers below
Franco brings Deutch to Chicago to have Christmas with her parents after she and her dad have argued, and he also brings along two members of a famous rock group who dress up with a lot of paint. They have an acronym for their group name so you probably know who I mean. It's funny because at the end they're singing a Christmas song and they're both dressed up like these monsters and one of the members is even Jewish!