The Change-Up

http://www.thechangeupmovie.com/

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I'm quite fond of Ryan Reynolds. As such, it was a bit of a no-brainer that I would go and see The Change-Up. Though if I'm honest, it was a similar situation to the previous film I reviewed, I Don't Know How She Does It, as I thought the trailer looked awful.

In the film, Reynolds plays Mitch, an 'actor' who spends the majority of his days smoking weed and playing video games. His dad, Mitch Snr (the underrated Alan Arkin), thinks it's about time he grew up. Mitch's best friend is Dave (Jason Bateman), who by comparison is very grown up. He's about to make partner at his law firm and has a wife and three kids. That is until fate steps in and switches Mitch and Dave into each other's bodies. Dave becomes Mitch and Mitch becomes Dave. Following this unwanted transformation, they must not only find a way to rectify the situation, and fast, but they must also learn how to live each other's lives without raising suspicion of those closest to them.

We've all seen films like this before, Big and Freaky Friday are just two that spring to mind, and as such, this is not a new idea. It's also not a particularly fresh take on the story of body swaps, uptight guy with responsibilities gets to do as he pleases while slacker boy has to knuckle down and prove his worth.

The two leads here are what make a tired situation enjoyable. Both are believable as men with responsibilities and men who'd rather not have grown up at all. It helps that both Reynolds and Bateman have good comic timing, and make for convincing buddies. Fine support is also given by Olivia Wilde and Leslie Mann as Dave's law firm associate and Dave's wife respectively. Leslie Mann in particular kind of overshadows everyone else by putting in a rather moving performance at times.

There are nice little touches in this film which do set it apart from similar films of old, Leslie Mann's performance is one of them. The others are more subtle things like Dave's (and in turn Mitch as Dave) relationship with his daughter, which is a nice side story. As is Mitch's (and in turn Dave as Mitch) relationship with his father. Having said that, there are also things which set this film apart in a bad way. Like the amount of breasts you see in this film. I'm no prude but it honestly felt like all of the women in this film were only allowed in it if they were naked at least once. It was a little more flesh than I personally thought was necessary but I'm sure any men reading this will disagree. There were also slightly too many poo jokes or poo references for my liking. We're not 5 and that's when poo jokes stopped being funny.

So to sum up, the film doesn't really shed any new light on an old story but it's entertaining nonetheless. 6.5 out of 10.

Viewing Date ~ 18th September 2011

UK Release Date ~ 16th September 2011

Cast Overview:

Ryan Reynolds ~ Mitch Planko

Jason Bateman ~ Dave Lockwood

Leslie Mann ~ Jamie Lockwood

Olivia Wilde ~ Sabrina McArdle

Alan Arkin ~ Mitch Planko Snr

Director ~ David Dobkin

Writer(s) ~ Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Green Lantern

http://greenlanternmovie.warnerbros.com/

I can barely believe that it's been two weeks since my last review. I'd love to say it's all my fault because my other writing is taking precedence over my blogging, but in truth it's because there has been NOTHING new out at Cineworld in two whole weeks (unless you count Kung Fu Panda 2). After the disaster that was Kung Fu Panda (I won't go into it unless you want me to) plus the reverse recommendations from people who'd seen Kung Fu Panda 2, I decided it was probably best to avoid it.

Which meant a very long wait for this weekend when Green Lantern and Bad Teacher came out. I have now seen both films and will start with Green Lantern which I saw yesterday.

Green Lantern is based on a DC comic of the same name. Now, my comic book aficionado friends will no doubt want to bludgeon me with their comic books for this, but I will never-the-less confess that until the film was in production I'd never actually heard of Green Lantern. If you suffer the same lack of comic knowledge allow me to give you a brief run down of the plot.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is an irresponsible and reckless pilot who crashes his very expensive new plane when some daddy issues cause him to lose control during a test flight. Simultaneously we see an alien (who we later learn is one of the 'Green Lanterns' of the title) facing off against another alien who absorbs peoples fear and grows larger from it. Following the fight - well it's not really a fight, the Green Lantern just sort of runs away - the Green Lantern, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison - aka Jango Fett from Star Wars!), is fatally wounded and crash lands on earth. He tells his ring to go and seek out the next Lantern to take his place. The ring finds Hal and et voila Hal becomes the next Green Lantern.

Allow me if you will, to compare one comic book movie to another very different comic book movie. Earlier this year saw the release of Thor, a comic book film which again, I knew nothing about. Whereas Thor brilliantly set up the background of all the characters, giving them all space to shine, it also managed to fit in an exciting plot and a whole story set on three different planets.

I know Green Lantern is a whole different kettle of fish, for one, it's DC rather than Marvel, but essentially it's trying to do the same thing. Teach us about a comic book character that hasn't been brought to the big screen before, show us some flashy special effects, create an emotional tie to the characters and make us want to see more of them.

Where Thor succeeded spectacularly Green Lantern fails. In every possible way. Don't get me wrong, Ryan Reynolds tries, he really does, to make Hal likable. He uses his usual mix of comedy and being ridiculously buff to get us on side. But the film is so incredibly dull that he just can't save it. The special effects are some of the worst I've seen since 2012's plane tried to take off in a dodgy CG dust cloud. At points it looks as if Ryan's head is just floating in mid air on top of his CGI body. It's just so painfully obvious CGI that it's kind of insulting. Isn't CGI supposed to have reached a point where everything looks real? 

I really do hate to compare, but for example, the Bifrost bridge in Thor was gorgeous. And looked like it was there. Whereas the aliens in this, did not look real for one moment. Should I even mention the laughable villain with the enlarged brain? One of my friends commented on the similarity between him and the wheelchair bound inbred of 'The Hills Have Eyes' and I have to say the likeness is uncanny!

My final thought would be that if you want to see Ryan Reynolds looking buff go and rent Blade Trinity. And if you want to watch a good comic book movie, well you'll just have to wait for Thor to come out on DVD. The disappointment of June continues - 6 out of 10.

Viewing Date - 19th June 2011

UK Release Date - 17th June 2011

Cast Overview:

Ryan Reynolds ~ Hal Jordan / Green Lantern

Blake Lively ~ Carol Ferris

Peter Sarsgaard ~ Hector Hammond

Mark Strong ~ Sinestro

Temuera Morrison ~ Abin Sur 

Director ~ Martin Campbell

Writer(s) ~ Greg Berlanti (Screenplay and Screen Story), Michael Green (Screenplay and Screen Story), Marc Guggenheim (Screenplay and Screen Story) and Michael Goldenberg (Screenplay)