It had been over two months since I had last ventured forth into a movie theater, and what the heck...an Apatovian movie, on my way home from work, starring Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, two eminently appealing actors: what's not to like? This was my thinking, such as it was. This film, it turns out, is marginally better than Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and not nearly as good as Get Him to the Greek. On the plus side, the actors all performed their parts well, and there were a lot of good actors scattered throughout the ensemble, including Brian Prosehn, Mimi Kennedy, David Paymer, Jim Piddock, Chris Parnell, Jacki Weaver, and Rhys Ifans. Molly Shannon's cameo is the funniest thing I can remember her ever doing. Jason Segel and Emily Blunt have decent chemistry, Segal and Chris Pratt have absolutely amazing chemistry. Some of the set pieces were pretty funny, especially in the first half of the film. The negative? Pretty much everything else. There is a lot of air in this film. San Francisco is not even remotely a character in the movie: a lesbian chef is about as San Francisco as it gets. Pop quiz: if you're traveling from San Francisco to Ann Arbor, which Bridge do you cross? Hint: it's not the Golden Gate. The City pretty much could have been any place else, and the same holds true, I'm sure, for Ann Arbor. The University of Minnesota Psychology Department should consider legal action for being portrayed as sub-moronic, and lord knows professional chefs chop onions a whole lot better than anyone in this film seemed capable of doing. Outside of the acting, the whole project just felt lazy and half-assed (I was going to type "half-baked", but in fairness I think that would have brought about a major improvement in the quality of the finished product, or it certainly wouldn't have caused any damage). I left the theater with the sense that this was the most mediocre movie I had ever watched. It was average. Oh, and one thing more: I love, love, love, love crazy love Van Morrison's songs, but really...nobody sings Van nearly as well as the Man himself. Why the mediocre cover versions?
Review of The Five-Year Engagement
