Sometimes there are those days when you are apathetic towards working and just want to hang around the house and do nothing. Now you might say that a movie reviewer SHOULD be immune to this, but that was where I found myself on Memorial Day weekend-nothing that I wanted to badly see was out, but I decided to end my end my torpor and get up and see `The In-Laws'.
The film opens up in Prague, where Steve Tobias (Michael Douglas) is busy brokering a deal for a Russian nuclear submarine, which is broken up by what appears to be the Czech Police, which requires some tricky driving to escape. The scene then shifts to Chicago, where our other protagonist, Jerry Peyser (Albert Brooks), an obsessive and phobic podiatrist is busy hammering out details for his daughter's (Lindsay Sloane) upcoming marriage to Tobias' son (Ryan Reynolds).
In what could be seen as an outrageously incredible series of events, Peyser finds himself an unwitting and unwilling accomplice of Tobias, who as a deep-cover CIA agent, has been tasked to nab both the buyer and seller of the submarine. The two adventure to France to meet the buyer, a thoroughly odd arms dealer, Jean-Pierre Thibodoux (David Suchet), who has, uh, more things on his mind than submarines.
This is a classic case of a Tale of Two Movies-a good one and one not-so-good. I think today, I will discuss the smaller part-the good part. For one thing, the writing of the film was witty and engaging, with multiple barbs thrown out that are pretty dang funny. With this writing, Brooks and Douglas are allowed to play off of each other to, in a sense, become `The Odd Couple' of the new millennium. They are an excellent coupling and a magnificent piece of casting by director Andrew Fleming.
And for the not-so-good? Two things really got my goat here, the first of which being the immensely cheesy special effects. The first shot of the film is of the submarine in question, the problem is that I have seen much better rendering in video games, so what is seen is just well, stupid. Also, for most of the action shots the actors so obviously stand out from the picture behind them, that it makes one wonder if he has been transported back to the 1960s where such distinction was commonplace. Shoddy, just plain shoddy.
Also, `The In-Laws' is, for lack of a better expression, badly out of touch with reality. I cannot say too much, for fear of ruining the ending, but I can safely say that certain key features of geography in the Great Lakes waterways are blatantly ignored and an underwater weapons system ignores physics in an unforgivable manner (among other things).
I suppose that this was a bit of an unusual switch to watch-good writing, but lousy special effects, but `The In-Laws' managed to pull it off. Still, with a decent portion of the movie being good, and only the special effects being truly pathetic, I can give this movie a 5 out of 10, just because I say I can.
The film opens up in Prague, where Steve Tobias (Michael Douglas) is busy brokering a deal for a Russian nuclear submarine, which is broken up by what appears to be the Czech Police, which requires some tricky driving to escape. The scene then shifts to Chicago, where our other protagonist, Jerry Peyser (Albert Brooks), an obsessive and phobic podiatrist is busy hammering out details for his daughter's (Lindsay Sloane) upcoming marriage to Tobias' son (Ryan Reynolds).
In what could be seen as an outrageously incredible series of events, Peyser finds himself an unwitting and unwilling accomplice of Tobias, who as a deep-cover CIA agent, has been tasked to nab both the buyer and seller of the submarine. The two adventure to France to meet the buyer, a thoroughly odd arms dealer, Jean-Pierre Thibodoux (David Suchet), who has, uh, more things on his mind than submarines.
This is a classic case of a Tale of Two Movies-a good one and one not-so-good. I think today, I will discuss the smaller part-the good part. For one thing, the writing of the film was witty and engaging, with multiple barbs thrown out that are pretty dang funny. With this writing, Brooks and Douglas are allowed to play off of each other to, in a sense, become `The Odd Couple' of the new millennium. They are an excellent coupling and a magnificent piece of casting by director Andrew Fleming.
And for the not-so-good? Two things really got my goat here, the first of which being the immensely cheesy special effects. The first shot of the film is of the submarine in question, the problem is that I have seen much better rendering in video games, so what is seen is just well, stupid. Also, for most of the action shots the actors so obviously stand out from the picture behind them, that it makes one wonder if he has been transported back to the 1960s where such distinction was commonplace. Shoddy, just plain shoddy.
Also, `The In-Laws' is, for lack of a better expression, badly out of touch with reality. I cannot say too much, for fear of ruining the ending, but I can safely say that certain key features of geography in the Great Lakes waterways are blatantly ignored and an underwater weapons system ignores physics in an unforgivable manner (among other things).
I suppose that this was a bit of an unusual switch to watch-good writing, but lousy special effects, but `The In-Laws' managed to pull it off. Still, with a decent portion of the movie being good, and only the special effects being truly pathetic, I can give this movie a 5 out of 10, just because I say I can.