Just the Ticket #74: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
There's a common thread or two to today's reviews, first among them being Mark Wahlberg (known back in the day as Marky Mark). So with no further ado, it's about that time to bring forth reviewin' and some rhyme. Feel the vibration!
We begin with We're the Millers, starring Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, and Emma Roberts (not to be confused with the sitcom The Millers, starring Will Arnett, Beau Bridges, and Margo Martindale). Sudeikis plays a hapless drug dealer who gets robbed and must assemble a fake family to smuggle "a smidge of marijoowanna" (which turns out to be the Mexican equivalent of a metric assload) across the US/Mexican border in an oversized RV while dealing with clingy tourists, corrupt Federales, psychotic drug dealers, and Border Patrol agents who love their jobs a bit too much.
Jennifer Aniston seems to have found new life in the world of R-rated comedies, bucking her identity as "Rachel on Friends" by stealing the show as a debaucherous dentist in Horrible Bosses, then taking on the role of stripper/fake mom in We're the Millers. Aniston works an industrial pole-dancing montage like it's Flashdance for the new generation, then turns around and plays religious mother figure at the flick of a switch, and both aspects of her character work perfectly, even among all the frantic shouting and borderline-Unrated ridiculousness that embody today's comedy scene.
Emma Roberts is seemingly just there to fill screentime as the hoodie-wearing 'hood-rat and fake daughter, doing little more that utter brief sentences of assent or disagreement. In other words, a dimensionless supporting role. Relatively unknown actor Will Poulter more than makes up for Roberts' lack of presence as Sudeikis' virgin neighbor Kenny, whom Sudeikis hires to play his son. Poulter makes Kenny a surprise on many comedic levels (who knows anything but the chorus from TLC's "Waterfalls?" And who else besides me remembers it was TLC, for that matter? Apparently, Kenny does, and the effect is genius), proving definitively that nerds can be cool.
We're the Millers was a typical modern comedy, but it was also more enjoyable than it was offensive, and at the end of the day, when all the F-bombs have been dropped and the incest jokes have lost their sting and you've forgotten that Jennifer Aniston threw a "baby" into oncoming traffic, the movie resolved into a heartfelt family road trip of madness with a happy ending (or is there a sequel coming?) that I would be happy to watch again.
B+
During one of We're the Millers' many requisite conflict-resolution sequences, Sudeikis tells his fake family that "I'm Marky Mark, and y'all are the Funky Bunch" in an effort to put the misfit trio in their places.
Enter the real Marky Mark, teamed with Denzel Washington in the action-comedy 2 Guns. Wahlberg's undercover AWOL NCIS agent ("Harumph! Tisk! Acronyms...." exclaims Ichabod Crane) teams with Washington's undercover DEA agent (drugs! another connection!) to rob a bank at Wahlberg's request, only to find that they were pitted against each other on purpose, and that the robbery has gotten them into a bigger picture of deeper trouble than either of them thought possible.
The love-hate chemistry they share is larger than life, just like the rest of the film, and 2 Guns doesn't require an epic span of time, or even a deep storyline, to get where it needs to go. All it really needs is Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington in front of a camera, talking to each other and making things explode. If We're the Millers is a road trip, 2 Guns is a joy ride with a full tank of nitro.
A
And finally, in a preview of Don Jon (the brainchild of Hollywood omni-threat Joseph Gordon Levitt) that accompanies our next selection, JGL sits in a car, drumming his steering wheel and rap-rocking out to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch's "Good Vibrations." I want to see Don Jon, but as it's not out yet, let's look at Paranoia, a decently thrown together picture of modern corporate espionage starring Gary Oldman by way of Michael Caine's cockney accent, Harrison Ford with a shaved head, and Liam Hemsworth (a.k.a. Thor's baby brother) caught between two tech giants and his own desire for fame, fortune, and females. Drafting off of the work of his superior-minded friends, Hemsworth somehow manages to break into a tech company, put Ford and Oldman's grizzled, ruthless pissing contestants behind bars for said espionage, and still get the girl, all with less opposition than one might expect. And yet it doesn't take much thought to expect anything.
C
We begin with We're the Millers, starring Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, and Emma Roberts (not to be confused with the sitcom The Millers, starring Will Arnett, Beau Bridges, and Margo Martindale). Sudeikis plays a hapless drug dealer who gets robbed and must assemble a fake family to smuggle "a smidge of marijoowanna" (which turns out to be the Mexican equivalent of a metric assload) across the US/Mexican border in an oversized RV while dealing with clingy tourists, corrupt Federales, psychotic drug dealers, and Border Patrol agents who love their jobs a bit too much.
Jennifer Aniston seems to have found new life in the world of R-rated comedies, bucking her identity as "Rachel on Friends" by stealing the show as a debaucherous dentist in Horrible Bosses, then taking on the role of stripper/fake mom in We're the Millers. Aniston works an industrial pole-dancing montage like it's Flashdance for the new generation, then turns around and plays religious mother figure at the flick of a switch, and both aspects of her character work perfectly, even among all the frantic shouting and borderline-Unrated ridiculousness that embody today's comedy scene.
Emma Roberts is seemingly just there to fill screentime as the hoodie-wearing 'hood-rat and fake daughter, doing little more that utter brief sentences of assent or disagreement. In other words, a dimensionless supporting role. Relatively unknown actor Will Poulter more than makes up for Roberts' lack of presence as Sudeikis' virgin neighbor Kenny, whom Sudeikis hires to play his son. Poulter makes Kenny a surprise on many comedic levels (who knows anything but the chorus from TLC's "Waterfalls?" And who else besides me remembers it was TLC, for that matter? Apparently, Kenny does, and the effect is genius), proving definitively that nerds can be cool.
We're the Millers was a typical modern comedy, but it was also more enjoyable than it was offensive, and at the end of the day, when all the F-bombs have been dropped and the incest jokes have lost their sting and you've forgotten that Jennifer Aniston threw a "baby" into oncoming traffic, the movie resolved into a heartfelt family road trip of madness with a happy ending (or is there a sequel coming?) that I would be happy to watch again.
B+
During one of We're the Millers' many requisite conflict-resolution sequences, Sudeikis tells his fake family that "I'm Marky Mark, and y'all are the Funky Bunch" in an effort to put the misfit trio in their places.
Enter the real Marky Mark, teamed with Denzel Washington in the action-comedy 2 Guns. Wahlberg's undercover AWOL NCIS agent ("Harumph! Tisk! Acronyms...." exclaims Ichabod Crane) teams with Washington's undercover DEA agent (drugs! another connection!) to rob a bank at Wahlberg's request, only to find that they were pitted against each other on purpose, and that the robbery has gotten them into a bigger picture of deeper trouble than either of them thought possible.
The love-hate chemistry they share is larger than life, just like the rest of the film, and 2 Guns doesn't require an epic span of time, or even a deep storyline, to get where it needs to go. All it really needs is Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington in front of a camera, talking to each other and making things explode. If We're the Millers is a road trip, 2 Guns is a joy ride with a full tank of nitro.
A
And finally, in a preview of Don Jon (the brainchild of Hollywood omni-threat Joseph Gordon Levitt) that accompanies our next selection, JGL sits in a car, drumming his steering wheel and rap-rocking out to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch's "Good Vibrations." I want to see Don Jon, but as it's not out yet, let's look at Paranoia, a decently thrown together picture of modern corporate espionage starring Gary Oldman by way of Michael Caine's cockney accent, Harrison Ford with a shaved head, and Liam Hemsworth (a.k.a. Thor's baby brother) caught between two tech giants and his own desire for fame, fortune, and females. Drafting off of the work of his superior-minded friends, Hemsworth somehow manages to break into a tech company, put Ford and Oldman's grizzled, ruthless pissing contestants behind bars for said espionage, and still get the girl, all with less opposition than one might expect. And yet it doesn't take much thought to expect anything.
C
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