In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “I really wouldn’t consider myself a Marvel or comic book fanboy, but as I read my own gushing praise and geeky enthusiasm for this movie, I might have to rethink that.”
“This job… We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn’t mean everybody. But if we can’t find a way to live with that, next time… Maybe nobody gets saved.”
Marvel Studios really has cracked the code. I read comic books for a few years as a teenager, but I’m in no way an authority of devotee. To me, the already massive, ever expanding Marvel cinematic universe is filled with movies that are all basically the same. The names of the characters might change, and the objects of desire they’re trying to keep from their interchangeable villains might be different, but strip away the surface level stuff, and there’s really no difference between a movie about The Avengers, compared to one about The Guardians of the Galaxy, or the latest offering starring Thor. Yet for all of that, I can’t help loving the ride every single time I take it. Which just happened once again, with Captain America: Civil War.
After the events of The Avengers: Age of Ultron saw an entire city ripped from the earth, raised to the sky and thousands killed, the US government, represented by Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt), decides it’s time for enhanced humans like the Avengers to come under the control of the United Nations. The two alpha Avengers are split on this, with Iron Man / Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), in favor, and Captain America / Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) firmly against. (more…)
“I was designed to save the world. People would look to the sky, and see hope… I’ll take that from them first!”
It seems like we’re getting closer and closer to Marvel universe singularity. Soon, there’ll only be two kinds of movies, solo superhero movies, and super hero team up movies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti super hero movies. The Marvel universe is just too reliably good. But in the lead up to this latest installment, I was definitely starting to feel a little super hero fatigue. You can have too much of a good thing. But, I’m only human, so it was pretty much impossible to not get sucked into seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron.
“I was designed to save the world. People would look to the sky, and see hope… I’ll take that from them first!”
It seems like we’re getting closer and closer to Marvel universe singularity. Soon, there’ll only be two kinds of movies, solo superhero movies, and super hero team up movies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti super hero movies. The Marvel universe is just too reliably good. But in the lead up to this latest installment, I was definitely starting to feel a little super hero fatigue. You can have too much of a good thing. But, I’m only human, so it was pretty much impossible to not get sucked into seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron.
John Favreau is the quintessential Hollywood Cinderella story. As an actor, he was frustrated with the small roles he was getting, so he took the bull by the horns, co-wrote dream roles for himself and Vince Vaughn in Swingers and became a movie star. That wasn’t enough, so he flexed his directorial muscles on little oddities until he got behind the camera on the massive Iron Man. Now, a decade or two later, he’s combining the lot. The small, character based stories of his early years, with the free directorial autonomy and all star case of his later years, in Chef.
10 years ago, Carl Casper (Favreau) was the hottest, limit pushing chef in Los Angeles, raved about by food critic Ramsay Michel (Oliver Platt). Today, he has a prestige restaurant at his disposal, owned by Dustin Hoffman’s Riva, complete with Scarlett Johansen as the world’s hottest hostess, Molly. When Ramsay Michel returns, his scathing review paints Carl as a boring has been. A half assed social media lesson from his son leads to a very public, online breakdown from Carl, before a real life break down sees him unemployed. (more…)
John Favreau is the quintessential Hollywood Cinderella story. As an actor, he was frustrated with the small roles he was getting, so he took the bull by the horns, co-wrote dream roles for himself and Vince Vaughn in Swingers and became a movie star. That wasn’t enough, so he flexed his directorial muscles on little oddities until he got behind the camera on the massive Iron Man. Now, a decade or two later, he’s combining the lot. The small, character based stories of his early years, with the free directorial autonomy and all star case of his later years, in Chef.
10 years ago, Carl Casper (Favreau) was the hottest, limit pushing chef in Los Angeles, raved about by food critic Ramsay Michel (Oliver Platt). Today, he has a prestige restaurant at his disposal, owned by Dustin Hoffman’s Riva, complete with Scarlett Johansen as the world’s hottest hostess, Molly. When Ramsay Michel returns, his scathing review paints Carl as a boring has been. A half assed social media lesson from his son leads to a very public, online breakdown from Carl, before a real life break down sees him unemployed. (more…)
A central relationship built around two people with exactly zero chemistry… An overly convoluted kidnapping plot involving a mentally challenged, Baywatch obsessed man-child… Pointless cameos from Christopher Walken and Al Pacino perpetuating all the negative opinions we have about the modern work of these once-great (still can be great when they try) actors… When watching Gigli, the question isn’t “What went wrong?”, it’s “How did any these ingredients result in a movie being made at all?”
Why did writer / director Martin Brest bother finishing the screenplay? Surely by the time he wrote “mentally challenged man, obsessed with Baywatch” in his outline, he knew he was on a stinker. Why did the studio think a combined $25million for Affleck and Lopez was a good investment when the script was so terrible? Even after all that, once it was made, why did anyone involved think it was worth ruining their reputations for the foreseeable future by letting it be released. Oh yes, Gigli lives down to every negative thing you’ve ever heard about it.
Affleck is Larry, a low level mob enforcer who’s instructed to kidnap the brother of a District Attorney or something. I can’t be sure of the specifics, because I did find myself distracted and zoning out for long stretches. The kidnapee is played Justin Bartha, he’s the “other guy” from The Hangover movies. You know, the one who disappears before the fun adventures begin. Here he goes, as Robert Downey Jr would say in Tropic Thunder, full retard. I don’t know if that statement is offensive, but I do know his performance is. J-Lo shows up as Ricki, another mob enforcer sent by Affleck’s boss to keep an eye on the kidnapping. Also, she’s a lesbian. Apparently, in Martin Brest’s world, that’s enough to make her a fully formed character.
Brest tries to give all his characters personality through monologues. Long, rambling, excruciating monologues. I think he might have been attempting a mix Tarantino “cool” and Kevin Smith “sexual frankness”, but they all just come off as indulgent wanks. Affleck, Lopez and Pacino all deliver them adequately, but when working with such hacky dialogue, the best performance in the world is still like putting lipstick on a pig.
On the one hand, I can understand how Gigli put Affleck in movie limbo for a few years. He does play the leading role in a truly terrible movie. But on the other hand, he also manages to make some of Brests’ terribleness not quite so terrible. There are a couple of genuinely funny moments where the humour consists of 1% joke, 99% Affleck working his ass off to make it at lease grin worthy. Seeing him turn this massive lemon into a few drops of lemonade, it seems inevitable that he became a directing and acting A-lister when the stank of Gigli finally wore off a few years later.
I generally don’t enjoy watching movies that are so bad, they’re good, but I get it when other people do. Gigli doesn’t even have that going for it. It’s a mess, but not even an entertaining mess that falls apart under too much ambition. It aims low and somehow hits even lower. One thing worse than a bad movie, is a boring, bad movie. Even worse than a boring, bad movie, is Gigli.
Budget $75.6million / U.S Box Office $7.2million
Razzies Won:
Worst Picture
Worst Actor – Ben Affleck
Worst Screen Couple – Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez
Worst Director – Martin Brest
Worst Screenplay – Martin Brest
Bored and Dangerous 