Tag: Will Ferrell

Strays (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A heartwarming tale about a tiny dog (Reggie, voiced by Will Ferrell) on his quest to reunite with his owner……….so he can bite his dick off.

This film is filthy. The talking animals may lead you to believe it’s a cute film, but it’s not; it’s incredibly sweary and sexual. This can work; Joy Ride has been my favourite comedy of the year (so far). I will admit though, there are times whilst watching Strays where it all felt a bit much. It felt like the film was being crude for the sake of being crude. Sometimes the jokes are coming so quickly that this isn’t a problem, you can just move on to the next joke and recover. But a few of the worst jokes in this are the recurring ones, so they’re hard to ignore when they linger over the movie like a wet fart. It’s a shame as Strays is hilarious at times, there are moments where it’s whipsmart, with some laugh-out-loud dialogue. It also has more heart than you expect it to, the backstory given to Bug is brilliant, elevating the character to something better than you thought it was. The love story between Maggie and Hunter is also kind of sweet. The key emotional part is Reggie and his relationship with his owner Doug (played by Will Forte in absolute detestable form, it’s brilliant). You can tell a lot of the scriptwriters’ attention was on this section; making sure it plays as it should; reminiscent of an abusive romantic relationship, but without seeming like you’re making light of it.

The relationship allusions are really well done, the PTSD Doug has got, and the realisation that being mistreated is not how a healthy relationship should go. It’s an interesting way of approaching a very delicate topic, and it works. This also means that the revenge at the end feels earned, it doesn’t feel like a quick impulsive decision; but the inevitable result of years of tension and mistreatment. In case that wasn’t enough, Doug does go into full dickishness just before the end; getting incredibly fed up with Reggie and threatening to beat that bitch with a bat.

Yes, I know that “beat that bitch with a bat” reference doesn’t really work. Bitch applies to female dogs, and Reggie is male. So whilst at first it may have been an acceptable joke to make, if you think about it for more than a second, it just feels a bit lazy. A bit like this film(can I get some applause for how I managed that segue btw? Nope, damn). Because whilst the Reggie/Doug relationship (or, as shippers call it: Rug) works and is well-written. A lot of the moments feel underdeveloped. Whilst Reggie and Bug are strays (hey, that’s the title of the movie), two of the other foursome aren’t; with one being a therapy dog at an old folks home. There’s not much attention paid to how the owners/home residents react/feel about their dogs running away. Even just a 5-second cutaway of a confused old person stroking a rug or a coat and thinking it’s their dog would have closed that issue and provided a quick laugh. It feels like the writer just thought “But who’s going to think about that?” and moved on. Well, I thought about it Mr. Writer Man, I thought about it. And it just feels lazy. There are other moments that don’t work if you think about them for more than a second. If it went through a few rewrites it could be amazing, as it is, it’s just good. It’s destined to be thought of just as “Oh yeah, I watched that once” and then forgotten again.

Spirited (2022)

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Quick synopsis: A musical version of Charles Dickens’ story of a miserly misanthrope who’s taken on a magical journey.

It can’t have escaped your attention that there are quite a few streaming services available, and they all need a hook to justify their own existence. Netflix has Stranger Things (and good branding), Amazon Prime has more recent movies (and the ability to add digital purchases to it), Shudder has horror (and also a shocking customer service team, but that’s a story for another time), Mubi has an extensive range of foreign-language cinema and independent films (as well as a sending you a notification when a film on your list is leaving), whereas AppleTV+ has…………yeah I’m not sure. I’m currently on a free trial of it, and it has a select few things, but nothing that makes me think it’s going to be worth paying for while the trial ends. It is aiming big though, and this film is an example of this. You don’t hire Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell if you’re not aiming for mass-market appeal.

I’m not really sure this is going to be the film to break Apple into the next level. I mean, it’s funny, and it is good at what it does. But it’s not essential. It also hasn’t really been advertised much, a film like this needs to be unavoidable to the point of being annoying. If this has any hope of becoming a Christmas cult classic, it needs to be everywhere, it needs an audience. It also needs to be fun.

It at least achieves that. It’s almost two hours long, but doesn’t feel it. That’s helped by the music being very good. Music is a big part of Christmas films, think of how much the music improves Home Alone or The Muppets Christmas Carol. This is a musical, so obviously the songs are even more important. I can only remember one song from it. I try to remember more and all I get is the one from Community. Outside of a few songs I can’t see listening to the soundtrack in full, you can probably cut all of the songs from here and it wouldn’t affect the story that much. It makes it feel like the script was written, and then the songs were handled separately and inserted randomly, and nobody likes random insertions (citation needed). I get why this film is a musical, Christmas films have a higher allowance for joy and music than others. But it doesn’t really work for me, I think part of that might be because, let’s be honest, Will Ferrell isn’t a great singer. At least they have a logical reason for it to be a musical. Apparently the afterlife is a musical, so whilst heaven isn’t clarified as existing, hell does.The script could be improved too. There’s nothing inherently bad are embarassing about it, but moments could be better. Ryan Reynolds establishing character moment should be better. The movie talks about him being irredeemable, but doesn’t show it. He has moments of heartlessness, but not enough. Yes, he lies, manipulates, and stokes fear/division, but that doesn’t make him the worst person in the world, it just makes him someone involved in sales.

On the plus side, this film does have the suicide of a child in it. I didn’t think it would include that, but it does. So that shows that it’s not afraid to get dark and disturbing when it needs to, so if they did that at the start it would make his character arc more effective. I appreciate it taking a new angle on the cliche Christmas Carol plot. It approaches it in a way that works, and makes sense in-universe if you don’t think about it too much. I like a fresh take on something I’ve seen before as it makes it easy to compare and notice the strengths. The strengths are that it’s funny, has some great scenes (the opening is the best way for this film to open), and is unique.

But that also highlights the weaknesses. The biggest weakness being, of course, that it’s a comedic musical film based on Christmas Carol, and the best one possible was already made in 1992. You can’t be better than that, and it’s just not different enough to work.

Downhill (2020)

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I saw a trailer for this somewhere, can’t remember where, and it should have been a warning to me that I couldn’t remember anything from the trailer besides the movie exists. I couldn’t even remember that Will Ferrell was in it. I knew Julia Louis-Dreyfus was in it, so I considered that a good thing as I genuinely love her performances and am always happy to see her in things. It was directed by Jim Rash, who played the Dean in Community, who co-wrote it alongside Jesse Armstrong, famous for Peep Show, Veep, The Thick Of It, Four Lions, and In The Loop, all of which are wonderfully scripted. So while hopes weren’t high, I did hold out hope that this would be a sleeper hit.

It’s not, it’s just asleep. It’s incredibly lazy, some of the jokes are basically just “Europeans are weird” (bit weird that’s the second Will Ferrell film of 2020 that can be said about). It’s a shame as everybody involved is incredibly talented, but none of them show it in this. If I had to guess I’d say it’s a clash of comedic styles. Will Ferrell normally does quite loud and physical comedy which is slightly obvious and manic, whereas Julia Louis-Dreyfus goes for slightly more dialogue-focused and subdued stuff (her most extreme physical stuff probably being a few Elaine moments in Seinfeld). And Armstrong’s strength is usually dialogue and story, the film is a remake so he doesn’t have control of the story, and Will Ferrell is more physical than dialogue based. That creates a very weird mesh of conflicting styles that never seems to settle on what it wants the film to be.

It’s hard to explain why, but this film felt incredibly small, like a TV movie, albeit with a big name cast. Watching it, you can almost sense the advert breaks. It’s not just that, it’s the tone too. Nothing hits home. The emotional beats don’t work, the characters feel incredibly ill defined, I think one of the kids is written to be incredibly nervous, but it’s not showcased effectively enough for it to be something that character can overcome for narrative purposes. A lot of the side characters are pointless too, appearing just to drive the plot forward for a small moment, then disappearing.

It’s a shame as by all logic this should be a fantastic film, as it is, I can’t recommend it, even as a curiosity.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)

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So we’ve reached the point where I’m catching up on films I’ve missed so far this year. First off is this one, a film not released in cinemas but was on netflix. It was originally supposed to be released alongside Eurovision, which was cancelled due to COVID 19.

Eurovision is insane and weird, so this is perfect fodder for a film, and should allow Will Ferrell to be at his madcap best. It’s a shame then, just how plain this film is. Will Ferrell’s character is essentially “Will Ferrell with an accent”, and at this point that type of character is just becoming grating.  The film itself is incredibly plain, very American. It also has a central premise that doesn’t hold up if you do any research into it.

It’s about two Icelandic singers who enter Eurovision (essentially a Euro-wide singing contest which is, well it’s kind of weird) hoping to win. But (unknown to them), one of the people on the Icelandic Eurovision committee has been killing Icelandic singers because if a country wins then they have to host the next years contest, and the country can’t afford it, so if the singers die then they won’t win. The central premise is flawed, as if a country can’t afford to host, it can defer to another country, and that has happened multiple times. So the premise of the film doesn’t work. It doesn’t even work in the universe the film creates. A character mentions in passing that “Everybody hates UK so they never win”, but in this film, the song contest is being hosted by the UK. So they obviously won the year before. So even if in this film universe of “no, if you win, you HAVE to host” it completely lacks consistency.

The opening song has to be commended though, it’s the kind of weirdness that you associate with Eurovision and is kid of perfect, the rest of the film? Not so much. It’s an incredibly generic “a man and woman work together and one doesn’t realise the other is in love with them, complete with comedic misunderstanding” film. First off, why is it a romance film when it should be like a sports story? Also I consider it a mistake to have so much Will Ferrell, this is the perfect setting for an ensemble movie. You have different comedians be different performers, focus mainly on one night of the contest, and just let them all go nuts.

It’s also FAR too American. There’s a moment where the cast randomly burst into a song medley. This would have been a good opportunity to do like a mini-showcase of Eurovision hits, and whilst it does include ABBA and a Celine Dion song which was an entry in 1988, it also includes Madonna, Cher, and Black Eyed Peas. So that scene doesn’t give you an insight into the contest, and instead is just an advert for American music. It would be like if a film about the American film industry had a montage that consisted mainly of anime and Bollywood films.

One final thing: why the f*ck was this 2 hours long?