The Watch (2012)

The Watch started production way back in 2008, with changes of director and cast, and after four years is finally in cinemas now. I'm a fan of Vince Vaughn and have been a fan of the Seth Rogan (one of the writers) / Jonah Hill / Judd Apatow comedies. At first glance it seems Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, in the autumn of their respective careers, may have joined this project as a way of retaining their relevance to a new kind of audience for major motion picture comedies. Will this marriage of convenience to be happily ever after?

My answer to that question is a stern 'no'. I've followed Vaughn's career all the way from 'Swingers', I've always been a big fan, and seeing him drool out the clunky, inconsistent and completely unfunny dialogue was just depressing. Ben Stiller's 'Evan' and Richard Ayoade's 'Jamarcus' are similarly inconsistent, never really giving you a feel that they're playing the same character from one scene to another. The lack of credibility spreads out to peripheral characters, especially the police chief, and seeing the film try to create a narrative from a foundation of characters in which I have no faith is completely pointless.

The attempts at "comedy" misses every possible target at which they're aimed, not once is there an attempt at a more clever sort of humour, it's all below the belt and base. To be more specific--the entire script reads like a first draft. It's a script written so all the major plot points could be put on paper and we'll think about the modifying it for more wit and more consistency later: but then that never happened. For a film that took four years--four years!--to make, I find the 'first draft' feel of the writing a most shocking disappointment. Perhaps the best demonstration of the first draft feel is the tagline "Got Protection"--it's crass, not funny, and really seems like the first thing they thought up, and then never bothered to go back and improve it. To see that tagline on the way in serves as the best introduction for what the next 102 yawn-filled minutes will bring.

It's a terrible feeling to sit through a movie and feel angry for it, but The Watch generated in me a real contempt, I'll remember the experience mostly as 'the moment Ben Stiller's and Vince Vaughn's careers ended'. Yes, they'll still be in movies, but the all comedic credibility both of them had, that quality that allows an audience to both laugh-with and laugh-at and laugh-with again (an indispensable quality for a comedic actor) was lost. They set it alight in the backyard and charged admission to the bonfire.

It's not often you'll go into see a comedy at the cinema and come out feeling depressed, but that was my experience with The Watch. I'm giving it my lowest rating.

Sex and the City 2

OK, it doesn't scream 'cinema as high art', but is Sex and the City 2 a light-hearted, trashy but enjoyable romp, or an inane and soulless reel of annoying crap falling into the genre of exploitation cinema? Unfortunately, this film (and I use the term 'film' losely; it's not so much a film as it is an advertisement for stupidity) falls into the latter category.

Essentially, we are set up to dislike 4 characters, and then watch them get pampered for an hour. In a way it is the inverse of the short story I have no mouth and I must scream, in which we are set up to like five protagonists and then read about their torture for the rest of the story. Sex and the City 2 is a horror story for the equal and opposite reason. Contrast again with The Human Centipede; we're set up to dislike two girls and then see them be tortured for the rest of the movie (except a completely sympathetic Japanese tourist joins them, ruining this device), Sex and the City 2 goes in the other direction, with almost equally horrifying results.

We are introduced to Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), our protagonist, as she feels her recent marriage to John Preston (Chris Noth) has lost some sort of 'zing'. Rather than realizing this is a normal part of marriage, we're taught that the Hard-working John is wrong to stay in and cook for his wife; he should be taking her to expensive restaurants! On a day when John had been worked himself tired, we're to believe he's an unsympathetic character for the crime not wanting to a attend completely unrelated film premiere. Never mind "the market fell 100 points" and thousands of real people will likely lose their jobs, you're a a bastard for then not taking your mealy-mouthed wife to indulge in superficiality.

It's not that scene which trivializes and undermines the sanctity of human relationships--no no--that already happened in the opening scene. We're introduced to the four women as they attend a gay wedding, where infidelity is discussed as a perfectly acceptible because, hey "there are lots of marriages". Yeah, well thank goodness there are lots of other films, too.

All of this could be forgiven if the films proved genuinely funny, but all attempts at humour are trite and predictable. Should an Irish character appear on screen, you know it's only a matter of time before a 'lucky charms' joke is made. Worse, the choice of targets is at times the only characters or figures with which the audience has any real sympathy. Any sort of independence or utilitarianism is punished and condemned as 'stupid'. Checking that your phone is functional in a new country is distracting the group from concerns more superficial, so shame on you, idiot!

It gets worse, far, far worse. Superficiality continues on as a conceptual hero of the story, uniter of cultures, and meaning of life. Guaranteed to make you feel 'what is wrong with the world', give this one a miss.