![]() Sometimes one is just in the mood to watch something a little over-the-top and ridiculous. But the question is, do you want it to be a comedy like, or an action movie? I say... Is it too much to ask for both? A few years ago, there was talk about an upcoming 2012 movie reboot of '21 Jump Street'. Collectively, many of us rolled our eyes at yet another concept from the 80s coming back. But to be fair, I had never actually seen the show before. I just knew it was about cops and starred Johnny Depp before he got super famous. Although at that point he'd have at least been known. A little while later, we got to see who would star in this feature; Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum of all combinations of people. It was hard to say if it would work. At this point Jonah Hill was flexing his acting chops with his Oscar nomination for 'Moneyball', and Channing Tatum wasn't quite awesome to the dudes yet, known best for roles in 'Step Up 2' and 'Dear John'. Who knew if this would work? Continuing on, one does his or her research on whether a movie may be good or not based on who is writing and/or directing. In this case, it was being directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, known best at the time for directing 'Clone High'. And the writers? Michael Bacall (story/screenplay) and Jonah Hill (story). At this point I was all set to check it out because Bacall was also responsible for penning the script to an all-time favourite of mine, 'Scott Pilgrim vs The World', which came out a couple of years earlier. So, eventually I decided I kinda had to check out '21 Jump Street', and man, did it deliver. Jonah Hill was always pretty funny, but Tatum genuinely surprised a lot of us with his sense of humor. The pair actually ended up contrasting incredibly well. But the goodness does not stop there. Added to the cast is Ice Cube, who plays Captain Dickson, and is probably the funniest character in the movie. Why? Well, let's just put it this way. '21 Jump Street' did for Ice Cube what 'Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle' did for Neil Patrick Harris; it completely resurrected him. Up until now, Ice Cube was mostly known for family pictures. This was to such an extent there's an outright joke about it in an episode of 'The Boondocks'. But 'Jump Street' brought him back, made him the N.W.A. Ice Cube we always used to love, and gave him the funniest lines throughout the whole movie. So, other than the cast and good writing and direction, there's one more thing about this movie that will probably sell you on it. If I'd have known about it way beforehand, I'd have been all over it from the get-go. The movie is straight up fourth wall-breaking. One doesn't really know that going in, but when Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are talking to Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman), they make it very obvious that the movie is totally self-aware. For me, it almost always makes a movie better if it is self-aware. Even if it's still a bad movie, it can make it more forgivable. But '21 Jump Street' was actually all-around good, and easily one of my favorite movies of 2012. But then they were gonna come out with a sequel, which could have gone either way. The good news was that the entire team behind the first one got behind the second one. Amazingly enough, '22 Jump Street' practically parallels the first movie in terms of how funny, action-packed and self-aware it is. The funniest thing about it is that in it's self-awareness, it even practically attacks itself for doing the same thing they did in the first one and that it's actually pretty lame. It pretty much makes fun of itself for even existing. But we are able to eat it up because it's saying "Yeah, I exist, love me or hate me, I don't care". Turns out, most of us loved it just as much, if not more than the first. Going back to the team behind it, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller also directed the pilot episode of 'Brooklyn Nine Nine', 'The LEGO Movie' and are slated to direct the upcoming Han Solo story for the 'Star Wars' universe! After realizing that they've worked on so much of what I've ended up loving, I'm greatly looking forward to how they tackle a 'Star Wars' story! So, in closing, if you're looking for a couple of easy-to-watch goofy action comedies that break the fourth wall and AREN'T 'Deadpool', these two hilarious titles are a great place to start!
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![]() With 'The LEGO Batman Movie' spin-off being released this February, I thought it only fitting for my first recommendation to be the movie that made it happen. A personal favorite from 2014, this is 'The LEGO Movie'! Our story takes place in a LEGO world, where everyone is essentially "lead" by the OCTAN Corporation, and Lord Business (Will Farrell). Within this world, everyone must "follow the instructions" so that everything looks right, and the city can flow perfectly and as repetitious as Lord Business wants it. It's made out in the movie to be a sort of law. In the opening sequence, Lord Business breaks into the resting place of a powerful weapon known as the Kragle, and steals it from a wizard named Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman). We also learn of a prophecy that suggest someone known as "The Special" will come along, and find a relic called "The Piece of Resistance", which will work against the Kragle. Meanwhile, one of the construction workers of the city, and our hero, Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) wakes up one morning for another day of work. The day goes pretty normally, but after hours, he sees a mysterious woman searching the job site for something. Upon inspection of the situation, Emmet finds himself falling down a hole, and finding the Piece of Resistance. After he touches it, he gets flashes of visions and finds himself in the interrogation room of Bad Cop (Liam Neeson), Lord Business' Liutenant. But the woman from the construction site breaks in, rescues Emmet, and introduces herself as Wyldstyle. Believing he is the Special, she takes him to meet Vitruvius. There, Emmett learns that Wylstyle and Vitruvius are known as "Master Builders"; characters who live in the LEGO world, but don't follow and instructions and use their imaginations to create. It's also here when Wyldstyle soon reveals to Emmet that the Kragle is a weapon that Lord Business wants to use in order to freeze the world and keep perfect order. It turns out that Emmet isn't the Master Builder they thought he was, but despite that, Vitruvius and Wylstyle (mostly Vitruvius) believe in Emmet's potential with his unique ideas. One way or another, they are determined to stop Lord Buisiness and his plan to freeze everything into "perfection". Joining the cast along the way, we run into a variety of characters. Unikitty (Alison Brie); a cat-unicorn hybrid whose all sunshine and rainbows (until she gets upset). Metal Beard (Nick Offerman); a giant pirate ship pirate character... not really sure how else to describe him. Benny, the 1980's Space Astronaut (Charlie Day). And of course, Batman, who is by far the funniest character in the movie. With that said though, this movie has a tremendous sense of humour. I'm a fan of animation, and it can usually make me laugh, but this one was pretty special for it. It's very rare that an animated film can make me laugh so much my face hurts by the end. And speaking of the end, I won't spoil it for you here, but there IS a very nice surprise ending to this whole movie. I wouldn't say it comes as a huge shock, but the underlying message is something I can totally relate to, as could anyone who loved playing with LEGO a lot growing up. By far one of the more impressive aspects of this movie is the voice acting. Not so much the flexibility of the voices as the amount of big names that show up with just one or two lines. Aside from everyone I mentioned already, we've also got Jonah Hill as Green Lantern, Will Forte as Abraham Lincoln, Channing Tatum as Superman, Shaquille O'Niel as himself, Cobie Smulders as Wonder Woman, and yes, Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian! This film also gets a few bonus points in my book, personally, because LEGO is my all-time favorite toy. This goes to the extent that I'm 34 and still collect here and there with no shame whatsoever about it. I'm what you'd refer to as an "AFOL" (Adult Fan of LEGO). It's always been something I've been rather passionate about, and if I ever have kids one day, I'd wanna pass it down. My Dad introduced me to it when I was 6 years old, and I basically just never got bored of it for the next 28 years. So, after that, one could easily guess that this was always gonna be a movie that I was gonna enjoy. But it actually ended up going above and beyond what I expected, essentially bringing me back to my childhood days of actually playing with my LEGO. I dunno how else to say it but it ended up making me very nostalgic, and nostalgia is always welcome in my world. Be it the interesting animation, the crazy amount of celebrity voice cameos, the humorous dialogue, or the overall story, I can honestly say Everything is Awesome with 'The LEGO Movie'! |
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