Want to know how to spend your theatre-going dollars this weekend? Richard’s CTV NewsChannel reviews for ‘Jersey Boys’ (two stars), ‘Think Like a Man Too’ (three stars) and ‘The Rover’ (three stars) run all weekend! Tune in and check them out!
Richard’s CP42 weekend reviews of “Jersey Boys” and “Think Like a Man Too” with George Lagogianes!
Film critic Richard Crouse gives ‘Jersey Boys’ two stars while ‘Think Like a Man Too’ gets three stars.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
The idea of turning self-help books into movies isn’t new. Fifty years ago Helen Gurley Brown’s guidebook “Sex and the Single Girl,” which featured advice on “How to be Sexy,” among other useful tips, was made into a film starring Natalie Wood and “Mean Girls” was an adaptation of the high school survival manual “Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence.”
So the idea of the 2012 farce “Think Like a Man” based on Steve Harvey’s best-selling book, “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” wasn’t a stretch.
But now a sequel? The question is: How do you conjure a second story out of a book with no plot? Set it in Vegas and let Kevin Hart do all the heavy lifting.
The idea of Harvey’s tome is to give women an inside look into the workings of the male psyche and take control of their relationships. It’s typical battle of the sexes stuff and on film they play it for laughs.
The four couples from the original movie— Maya and Zeke (Meagan Good and Romany Malco), Dominic and Lauren (Michael Ealy and Taraji P. Henson), Jeremy and Kristen (Jerry Ferrara and Gabrielle Union) and Tish and Bennett (Wendi McLendon-Covey and Gary Owen)—plus the almost single Cedric (Kevin Hart) reunite in Las Vegas—“The number one destination in the world for people who do the craziest thing… get married.”—for “Think Like A Man Too.”
They’ve gathered for the wedding of Candace (Regina Hall) and Michael (Terrence Jenkins) but you know as soon as someone says, “I’m going to give you the perfect wedding… nothing is going to go wrong,” that, of course, everything is going to go wrong. The romantic getaway is jeopardized when the bachelorette and bachelor parties spin out of control.
“Think Like a Man Too” plays like a tamer version of “The Hangover.” There’s even a cameo from a world champion boxer but “TLAMT” doesn’t have the cynical edge of the Bradley Cooper movie. Instead, it plays it safe, making Sin City look like a wild but not terribly dangerous place to get married. All the usual Vegas clichés are well represented, from the gambling montage to the glaring neon lights to flaming cocktails to skimpy bikini-clad women to male strippers. What happens in Vegas also happens in the movies… quite often. The only thing missing is an Elvis impersonator or two.
Director Tim Story moves the story—what there is of it—along faster than a spinning roulette wheel. Montages and music video interludes keep the pace up, disguising the fact that there isn’t much going on. The story is thin, despite the multiple storylines crisscrossing throughout.
Kevin Hart seems to be trying to singlehandedly make up for a dearth of story by pulling out all the stops. No pratfall or face pull is beyond him. He even recreates Tom Cruise’s “Risky Business” underwear dance. His hyperactive performance stands in stark contrast to the more laid back work from his co-stars, but it does add a splash of life to every scene he’s in. Only his enthusiastic reading of a line like, “I’m sick of this non-tourage,” could pull laughs from some of this material.
“Think Like a Man Too” is a thin story bolstered by a few laughs (courtesy of Hart) and good-looking people navigating the choppy waters of modern romance. The advice contained within has more Hart than actual heart and is unlikely to provide much self-help, but has the same kind of bland appeal as its predecessor.
Richard’s “Canada AM” reviews for “RoboCop,” “WEinter’s Tale” and “About Last Night.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
It’s the second cinematic go-around for David Mamet’s 1974 play, “Sexual Perversity in Chicago.”
The 1980s version was a peak into the lives of yuppified twenty-somethings played by pretty people Demi Moore and Rob Lowe.
The new version, in theatres this weekend, changes the location form Chi-Town to Los Angeles, focusing on singles in their 30s. The story hasn’t changed that much, just the faces; this time around the pretty people are played by Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, Kevin Hart and Joy Bryant.
The story focuses on two couples. Danny (Ealy) and Debbie (Bryant) and Bernie (Hart) and Joan (Hall). The former are lonely hearts who find one another, but don’t discover the passion needed to sustain their relationship. The latter are all passion with no firm commitment outside of kinky sex and “No you didn’t!” one-liners.
Like the original film the story is organized around various holidays and seasons and follows most of the same plot points but that’s where the similarity ends. Keep in mind, this isn’t a remake of David Mamet’s play, it’s a remake of a movie that was based on Mamet’s play, so there is no reverence for the tone established by one of America’s leading playwrights.
The easy sentimentality of the 1986 film has been replaced by raunchy jokes and situations, and if it is possible for a film, outside of the kind that play at The Pussycat Theatre, to have too many sex scenes, “About Last Night” is that movie. Instead of plot we’re handed sex scenes, but the kind of sex scenes that happen under blankets and reveal nothing, physically or story wise.
The story relies on the characters to maintain interest, but although they intersect—one of the movie’s stylish twists is the intercutting of scenes between the men and women to highlight their similarities and contrast their differences—the two couples seem to be from different movies.
Hart and Hall appear to be making a farce, while Ealy and Bryant are entrenched in a more sentimental—and duller—film. Hart and Hall have enough personality to make up for the dreary pretty people, but your enjoyment of the film overall may well be linked to your capacity for Kevin Hart’s wild antics.
“About Last Night” is frisky and a little freaky, but not as funny or insightful as it thinks it is.
