Get Him To The Greek Review!

I recently had a chance to see an advanced screening of Get Him To The Greek, and it was easily the most I have laughed out loud in a theater since seeing Wedding Crashers. Sure there have been funny movies since then, Tropic Thunder and The Hangover immediately spring to mind, but Get Him To The Greek felt like it had more laugh out loud guffaw moments. Jonah Hill and Russell Brand (together again after appearing in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) do an amazing job of leading a fairly hefty comedic cast, which includes quite a bit of fun celebrity cameos (even a Harry Potter-ite pops in for a bit).

Aldous Snow (Brand) is a rock star on the decline after a failed single that was said to be the worst thing to "happen to Africa since apartheid". He's being recruited by Aaron (Hill) to play a 10-year anniversary show at the Greek Theater in order to reinvigorate his career and make some money for Aaron's boss Sergio (played hilariously by Sean 'P. Diddy Daddy Puff' Combs), so he can buy more Air Jordan's for his 6 kids.

Naturally things don't go according to plan as Aaron tries to drag Aldous from London to L.A., with pit stops at the Today Show (hilarity ensues), Las Vegas (Jeffries ensue), and his Ex's house (which she happens to share with Lars Ulrich).

While the movie is filled with belly-laugh inducing one-liners and and ridiculous fuzzy walls, it actually has some heart at its center, and while it doesn't delve too far or too hard into the serious (Funny People was guilty of this), it does a good job of slyly inserting a moral to the story.

I think it's definitely safe to say that with this strong comedic performance Jonah Hill is definitely here to stay (he's the perfect mix of deadpan and razor-sharp delivery). Russell Brand is also making a very big splash in the states with his charming accent, witty quips, and devilish grin (which is on full display for a good chunk of the movie). I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of him, and hopefully paired with Hill (in Get Him To The Apollo perhaps?).

Get Him To The Greek will be one of the summer's biggest comedies, and it is definitely worth seeing in a large theater crowd. Even though I got to see it for free, I'll most definitely be back in theaters opening night to laugh along with the audience, and suggest that everyone go and bring their friends...fair warning though...you might be a bit uncomfortable throughout some of it, but its totally worth it!

I give the movie a 5 out of 5 for hilarity and just enough heart!

Kick-Ass Punches Butt!

After seeing the original trailer for Kick-Ass many months ago, with the falcon looking kid jumping from a tall building and landing directly on a taxi cab, I was intrigued. The movie seemed like it would be funny, crude, and at the very least an interesting look at mind of a high-schooler with delusions of grandeur. Kick-Ass did not disappointed in the slightest. Before I actually "review", let me mention the most talked about part of this movie, which is Chloe Moretz's Hit-Girl . The film has been slammed for allowing the 13 year old actress use very harsh language and create such mayhem and violence http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-04-15-chloe15_ST_N.htm. Personally, I think she did a great job, and handled the dialog and action scenes very well. She reminded me of a younger Dakota Fanning in Push. Both are troubled, haven't really had much of a childhood and are out to get the people that caused them to lose everything, and they do it in high-octane fashion.

Kick-Ass is based on a comic book of the same name written by Mark Millar and follows the story of Dave Lizewski (played by Aaron Johnson), who wants to take up fighting crime regardless of tiny annoying fact that, other than having some metallic plates in his body from a car accident stemming from an early crime-fighting adventure, he has no super powers. After developing his Kick-Ass persona, he teams up with Hit-Girl and Big Daddy (played by Nicolas Cage, who steals every scene that he is in), to fight the D'Amico crime family who run their operations out of a lumber company. The best parts of the film were ones that weren't shown in previews and trailers, which is a welcome surprise since that seems to be more and more common. One of my favorite scenes was towards the beginning of the film when Big Daddy and Hit-Girl are first introduced and are going through intense "training".

The film was actually much darker than I had originally thought it would be, but that was a welcome change from the screwball "ha-ha, I punched your nads" comedies that have been coming out for the last couple years. The comedic moments were well placed and well acted, giving the story light lifts every now and again when the subject matter got a little too-intense.

Since this is my first film review, I need to figure out what kind of system I want to use in terms of scoring, and I think a 5-point system would work best. Cliche-ly I give this film a 4 out of 5 stars. While Aaron Johnson still has a ways to go in terms of acting chops, Chloe Moretz and Nicolas Cage are both great, and make this a contender for what might be one of the years most surprising and best comic book films. Granted we still have almost the entire year to go, and haven't even gotten Iron Man 2 yet, I really do believe this film is very underrated, and comic book fans (which I admit I am not one of), will really enjoy the film.

Hopefully there will be more reviews later and this will turn into an actual "thing" but that's my test run for now! If you have any writing style or general suggestions I would love to hear them, thanks!