REVIEW: This Is the End

This Is the End (2013): Written and directed by: Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen. Starring: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera and Emma Watson. Rated R (Language and assorted apocalyptic debauchery). Running time 106 minutes.
 

2 ½ stars (out of four)

There are so many references and in-jokes in This Is the End, an end-of-the-world comedy written and directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, I can’t imagine the movie will be very funny even just a few years from now. Still, if you see it on a Friday or Saturday night in the next couple of weeks (a comedy like this is always more enjoyable with a packed house), you’ll get your money’s worth of laughs.

And if you already think the guys in this movie are funny, then seeing This Is the End in theaters is a no-brainer. When all hell is (literally) unleashed on the world, a group of Judd Apatow regulars hole up in Hollywood hoping to outlast the apocalypse.

Everyone plays themselves, or rather, caricatured, sometimes self-deprecating versions of themselves. For some of them, the movie is an opportunity to reinforce an already established persona. Seth Rogen, as always, is the affable stoner. He has a remarkable ability to give you the impression that he is already your friend. James Franco is the playboy. He’s the charismatic jerk who hosts the epic banger of a party in his newly bought mansion on the night of the rapture.

Other actors use the movie to play with their celebrity personas. Jonah Hill, wearing a diamond earring in his left ear, is effeminate and full of himself. Apparently still high off his Oscar nomination from a few years ago, the Hill character sees himself as a cut above the rest of these lowbrow comedians. Like many of the other actors in the movie, Hill is one of those guys people always accuse of playing themselves in every movie. Here, he actually does play himself and it’s one of the most individually distinct characters he’s ever played.

Michael Cera has a memorable cameo, playing against his usual awkward adolescent character as a coke-sniffing womanizer. Emma Watson shows up too to prove she’s more than Hermione Granger. (About a dozen more actors and stars have cameos, some of which are inspired.)

Danny McBride was never an actor I particularly liked but here, maybe for the first time, I understand what it is that people like about him. His comedic timing is on point and he is relentlessly, cheerfully tasteless. After a while though, I remembered why it is I can only take him in doses. His sense of humor is exhaustingly crude and cynical. It can be a bit much.

For my money, Craig Robinson made me laugh the most. He’s been stealing scenes in supporting roles for the better part of a decade now and is always a welcome presence in a movie. Perhaps the most likable and relatable guy here, Robinson squeals like a little girl in the face of danger and is delighted to find that drinking his own pee isn’t so bad. He can switch back and forth between straight man and goofball in a way few comedians can.

Then there’s Jay Baruchel, who usually plays the whiny, goody two-shoes of the group. In This Is the End, he plays the whiny, goody two-shoes of the group. With everyone else so gleefully playing into his type or against it, why isn’t Baruchel allowed to join in on the fun? Did Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen think the movie needed a moral center for the audience to relate to? Someone who scorns the vain lives of Hollywood celebrities? The movie does not need that and would have been more fun without it. Similarly, his bromance with Seth Rogen (in the film, the two are childhood friends reuniting for a weekend of smoking weed at Rogen’s place) is tired and weighs the movie down.

These scenes aside, This Is the End is a lot of fun. These actors are great at banter and the biggest laughs in the movie come not from the gross-out gags but the slick, fast-paced dialogue. At one point, bored in Franco’s fortress of a home, the guys decide to make a homemade sequel to The Pineapple Express. The best thing about This Is the End is that it feels like a movie made by a bunch of friends. All the CGI demons and other hellish effects made possible by the movie’s big budget aren’t necessary. This Is the End puts its stars front and center. They’re having a good time and you will too.

- Steve Avigliano, 6/15/13

REVIEW: 30 Minutes or Less

30 Minutes or Less (2011): Dir. Ruben Fleischer. Written by: Michael Diliberti. Story by: Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan. Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña and Fred Ward. Rated R (Language, violence and nudity). Running time: 83 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

In 30 Minutes or Less, a new comedy from director Ruben Fleischer, two would-be criminals strap a bomb to a stranger’s chest and force him to rob a bank under the threat of detonation, a premise that places the film in the company of a recent wave of action comedies that have been popular in the last few years.

In films such as Pineapple Express and this one (both of which feature actor Danny McBride) the best jokes stem from watching everyday incompetent shmoes realize that life is not like what they have been led to believe from their countless viewings of Lethal Weapon. This is amusing territory to be sure but when 30 Minutes or Less runs out of clever gags, it leans too heavily on its guns and explosives for laughs, a none-too-subtle way to cover for a lack of good material.

The victim of the aforementioned scheme is Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), a pizza delivery boy whose employer cruelly promises customers a free pizza if their order does not arrive in the titular time frame. Nick has a falling out with his childhood friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) over his interest in Chet’s sister Katie (Dilshad Valsaria), a plot device necessary to push the two apart before the forthcoming bomb situation draws them back together.

The architects of the deadly and poorly thought out plan are Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson) who want to off Dwayne’s father (Fred Ward), a ex-Marine hardass with a few million dollars in lottery winnings. Once his old man is out of the way, Dwayne can use his inheritance money to fund his dream business venture: a whorehouse that fronts as a tanning salon. First, however, the pair needs a hundred thousand bucks to hire a hit man (Michael Peña) who comes recommended by a stripper (Bianca Kajlich) Dwayne spills his guts to during a lap dance.

Eisenberg, fresh off his Oscar nod for The Social Network (there is a winking reference to Facebook in this film), reteams with his Zombieland director though he isn’t quite right for the role. There is too much of the nastiness from his take on Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg here and not enough of the neurosis from his Zombieland character. He is angry and spiteful when he should be bumbling and anxious.

The movie also features performances from a few comedic actors who are on the verge of becoming household names. The best of these is Aziz Ansari, a popular stand-up comic and TV actor who is about one good role away from becoming a star. There is something oddly likable about Ansari’s comedic persona; his hyper energy is fueled by the sort of faux-machismo that comes from watching too many action movies and rap videos (fitting that he should recently appear in a rap video). He poses as a tough guy but the act is quickly broken at the slightest sign of danger and he turns out to be as timid as any of us.

McBride and Swardson are more of a mixed bag. Their talents mainly lie in mining the lowest depths of privileged degenerates, which, I suppose, they are very good at though they are not always fun to watch. This is particularly the case when the script calls on them to deliver some pretty offensive one-liners. (The film is not shy about its sexist dismissal of its female characters and features a handful of racist comments directed towards Indians.) Coming from the mouths of such mean, unlikable characters, these lines are ugly rather than funny.

Entirely too much time is spent on this pair, especially in the opening scenes as the film needlessly depicts the two criminals devising their scheme. The movie might have taken a cue from the action movies it constantly references and launched right into the bomb and bank heist plot. Nick and Chet’s amateur robbery is great fun but gets limited to only a few scenes when it should form the basis of all the film’s jokes.

Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland was a surprisingly smart and often very funny movie but here he places too much comedic faith in the wrong places. I appreciate the film’s economic running time but when a movie is this short there should be no wasted time, no extraneous scenes. Instead, 30 Minutes or Less squanders its 83 minutes as though as though unaware its main character could explode at any moment.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/14/11