Posts Tagged ‘THINK LIKE A MAN’

THINK LIKE A MAN TOO: 3 STARS. “more Hart than actual heart”

1393878315000-XXX-THINK-LIKE-MAN-TOO-MOV-jy-1077The 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.

THINK LIKE A MAN: 3 STARS

think-like-a-man_10How do you turn a self-help book into a movie?

Well, instead of directly basing the story on comedian Steve Harvey’s non-fiction bestseller “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment” the movie uses the book as a springboard.

The book appears alongside four women—Mya (Meagan Good), Candace (Regina Hall), Lauren (Taraji P. Henson) and Kristen (Gabrielle Union)—who are using the self-help tome to better understand their men–Zeke (Romany Malco), Michael (Terrence J), Dominic (Michael Ealy) and Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara). Of course the men figure out what’s going on and pick up the book and get in on the game.

Despite playing a bit like an infomercial for Steve Harvey’s book, “Think Like a Man” is a funny and charming. It’s a bit overlong, a tad too theatrical, has too many overlapping stories—any one of the four relationships could have been a stand-alone rom com—and a predictable sitcom ending, but the cast fights to overcome the pigeonholes they’re saddled with—Mama’s Boy, The Woman Who Is Her Own Man—and turn the movie’s negatives into, if not exactly positives, then at least elements that don’t bring ruin the good natured romp on display.

The key player here is Kevin Hart, who serves as narrator and comic foil throughout. He doesn’t so much act as he does “deliver” his lines, but his over-the-top style livens up what might have been a much more by-the-book rom com.

“Think Like a Man” purports to be about modern relationships but the battle of the sexes seems a bit old fashioned, but there are consistent laughs all the way through if you can look past the stereotypes.