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Monday, February 13, 2012
MOVIE REVIEW
This Means War
I Love You, Man! (This Pic Shows Whose Gun Is Bigger)
Tom Hardy (left) as Tuck and Chris Pine as FDR in McG's romantic comedy-action
film "This Means War".
Fox
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Monday,
February 13,
2012
McG's romantic comedy action film "This Means War", which has special
Valentine's Day screenings tomorrow across the U.S. and Canada before launching
officially on Friday across North America, is a film that could have been made
with two leading Hollywood men from the 1950s. Imagine Richard Widmark and
Cary Grant fighting over Marilyn Monroe. Or George Peppard and Jimmy
Stewart sparring over Audrey Hepburn. "Love Fights Back", perhaps?
All's not fair in love and "This Means War", starring Oscar winner Reese
Witherspoon, who on the film's
airbrushed poster doesn't resemble herself.
As Lauren, a products marketing executive, Ms. Witherspoon is the eye candy CIA
spies and best buddies Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) fight over,
scanning each other's every move with Lauren on surveillance screens more than
they scan Lauren herself. Both men are dating her, and with the fervor of their
envy over each other's exploits you expect a ménage-et-trois (or deux) to occur.
The "War" sex scenes -- edited down after an initial R-rating on appeal to get a
PG-13 -- are tame, even if telling crotch views of a bikini mermaid who swims in
that impressive pool in the ceiling of FDR's swanky digs aren't.
McG, who directed the nudge-wink frolic "Charlie's Angels" (2000), puts
homoerotic tension front and center here, not only between Mr. Pine and Mr.
Hardy but also Ms. Witherspoon and Ms. Handler, the latter of whom as Trish asks
her sister Lauren to have sex for her when Lauren talks about Tuck and FDR, who
are hybrids of James Bond and Ethan Hunt but with senses of humor. Trish,
who should have switched places with Lauren in "This Means War", is satisfied
with her once-a-week-in-the-hay-rolling weighty husband -- the opposite of the
slender, muscular spies Lauren entertain, but Trish's inner 23 (or 36)-year-old
lives vicariously through Lauren, whom she looks a lot older than the year she's
supposed to. Trish, the cheerleader of this film's trysting and fisting,
so desperately wants the fantasy life Lauren is tangled and troubled by.
Ms. Handler, snappy, funny and razor-sharp as Trish, is by far the best thing
about "This Means War", a frisky, plastic enterprise fueled by florescence,
nourished by neon and galvanized by gloss. Tailor-made for a bucket of
popcorn, McG's breezy, brainless and modestly entertaining spy parody skates on
thin ice with a meaningless subplot about a terrorist Heinrich (Til Schweiger,
"New Year's
Eve",
"Inglourious Basterds") whose brother is killed
and whom Heinrich seeks vengeance for. Heinrich appears on the film's
periphery and he and the opening scene belong more to "Mission: Impossible 3"
than to this comedy. The action, like Heinrich, is conveniently trotted out
when the director fears the audience may tire of the pathetic stalemate between
the British Hardy and the American Mr. Pine, who spoof themselves and bicker
somewhat amusingly about Sade's "Smooth Operator".
What audiences may remember most about the duo lead males here are Mr. Hardy's
London accent and Mr. Pine's blue eyes, which look as if they will glow in the
dark at any woman's command. The setting has to be right of course, namely
when the candle lights have been blown out. Resourceful or not, these
dapper-suited dah-lings operate slickly as fish in and out of water,
particularly on Lauren's home turf. In contrast, the women -- as scripted
by Timothy Dowling and Simon Kinberg -- other than perhaps the cynical Trish,
are shockingly (or unsurprisingly) hollow. Katie (Abigail Spencer), the
estranged mother of Tuck's child, suddenly warms up to him late on when she finds
out he's not really a travel agent -- never mind that he's been a good father to
their son. For Katie at least, Tuck's status -- not his actions as a man
or character as a parent -- appears to mean everything. And any woman
dating both would likely have suspected that Tuck and FDR weren't exactly
strangers.
That said, what happened to men's men in cinematic romance comedies anyway?
The males of American romantic comedies on film these days are mainly pretty
boys who talk and philosophize more about the art of seduction than actually
getting down and dirty in love and war. What are they afraid of (apart
from getting their egos bruised)? What happened to the directness of the
past, the days where men wouldn't have to draw elaborate schemes to get the
women they wanted on the big screen, women who very often were clearly smarter
than the situations they subject themselves to today?
"This Means War" can best be described as a stop-and-start ballet adventure.
The two diva spies on a frenzied stage are upbraided by a stereotypically
abrasive CIA head (Angela Bassett, in loud mode in three scenes about Heinrich,
who "War" barely cares about.) The male spies are essentially engaged in a
Mr. and Mr. Smith love war over a woman whose patience and ignorance of these
dual male schemers eventually runs short. When the ballet is interrupted
by bullets "War" runs on empty, as do the other events on display. I
wasn't surprised by the outcome of the film; only by how good Ms. Handler was in
it. (She wows on her own nightly television talk comedy show "Chelsea
Lately".) See "War", if at all, for Ms. Handler's often priceless
one-liners, just about the only thing the film's screenwriters get right.
With: John Paul Ruttan, Daren A. Herbert, Kevin O'Grady, Jesse Reid, Leela
Savasta, Rosemary Harris, George Touliatos, Clint Carleton, John Stewart, Affion
Crockett.
"This Means War" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for sexual content
including references, some violence and action, and for language. The
film's running time is one hour and 38 minutes.
COPYRIGHT 2012. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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