The Campaign (Jay Roach)

[Thirdmango]

IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790886/)

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d185/thirdmango/Match-Cut/the-campaign-poster_489.jpg

[Thirdmango]

I went pretty back and forth on whether to give this one a yay or nay since it's clearly right in the middle of the fence. Finally settled on mild nay just because the best parts of this movie were all of the one note parts of the movie and not the main stars. Dylan McDermott however is fabulous every moment he is on the screen. Zach and Will were silly but never really all that funny unless they were involved with McDermott.

[Henry Gale]

Very mixed too, but ultimately the strength of its biggest laughs outweigh the many structural, pacing and general tone issues, almost all of which seem to stem from Roach's direction.

Most of all it suffers from the same strange decision Roach made with Dinner for Schmucks by taking things in an oddly serious direction in the third act despite setting up its universe as fairly cartoonish with characters that are designed to be almost entirely silly and one-dimensional for comedic effect. He had the right idea back in the Austin Powers days of treating the story the same way he treated the humour. Here, he suddenly reverts to using to his Recount and Game Change muscles despite this being a Will Ferrell comedy where punching babies and releasing sex tape-based campaign ads are plot points.

There's also not nearly enough scenes of Galifianakis and Ferrell together, especially since the handful of scenes they're pitted against one another are significantly stronger than when they're apart. And despite being written by Adam McKay, Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell, the movie has a much less joke-driven core to it than the Anchorman, Step Brothers, The Other Guys or Eastbound & Down-type affairs they've beautifully crafted before. Those work despite their other issues because they're just really, really funny above all else. The Campaign doesn't always make being funny its main priority.

And that's ultimately what plagues what should have been a funnier movie. It decides it wants to be something more, with something to say, instead of just properly doing what it could've done much better and funnier in the first place with all these talented people involved. I did appreciate the movie's surprisingly (though appropriately) cynical and bleak political outlook, but it's the sort of thing that just overpowers what should've been a much less self-consciously intelligent and sometimes oddly dramatic movie.

Another minor issue I had was just how sound mixing and editing was in it. Every time something like music or big sound effects were there to punch up a scene, they just sort of whispered underneath the dialogue in a very weak and awkward way. It almost seemed to undermine the laughs because I felt like I was almost watching a rough cut instead of just being entertained by what should have been something with a seamlessly polished feel. Even the way it decides to end is really strange.

But I should say that I did laugh a lot, and I'd even watch it again sometime. I guess just as it stood as something of a last hope for a great comedy for Summer 2012, it did fall a bit below expectations, but in the grand scheme of things, it's definitely above average. (Not sure I could have gone through another comedy as tedious as Ted this summer.) For me it comes out about the same level as something like The Dictator, though even that spent a lot less time attempting to get its own message across by doing so in only one tidy, sharp scene towards the end.

[Kiusagi]

Yuck... not funny. I'm with Thirdmango, McDermott is the highlight. I think I laughed more at him than everyone else combined.

This is probably a stupid thing to say, but I feel like comedies were funnier about ten years ago when most of them were PG-13. A lot of comedies lately feel like they're just piling on the swear words and sexual references without any real wit. There's a place for that, but it shouldn't be everywhere.

[Dead & Messed Up]

This was pretty decent, mostly because I loved seeing "Seth Galifianakis" get a starring vehicle. His character's fundamental decency holds the flick together, and I liked it when the election stayed in the realm of plausible - Galifianakis holding up the broom and declaring "It's a mess!" Ferrell eagerly texting his genitals to everybody.

I hoped the baby-punching was as far as the "outrageous" angle would go, but by the time the sex tape got into the mix (and inexplicably (really inexplicably) helped Ferrell's character), I got depressed. I think an election satire would've been fantastic, especially with ringers like Lithgow and Aykroyd starring as the "Moch Brothers," but this ends up mostly indulging in goofiness in between misguided attempts at relevance.

I think Kiusagi is right on regarding the vulgarity. I'm not a prude, but I don't really see the humor of two kids suddenly discussing their sexual deviancy at the table as a series of non-sequiturs. That Apatowian "line-o-rama" approach to comedy is hit-or-miss.

[Winston*]

Watched this and Wanderlust over the last two nights. Very similar movies. Two premises with a lot comedic potential in films that, despite having a bunch of talented comedians involved, are never as funny, weird or cutting as you feel they should be and ultimately end on notes of weak moralism.

The Seth Galifianakis character is so funny. Deserved a better movie.

xWbobiutvxM

[EyesWideOpen]

Mild yay. This was a lesser Ferrell movie but it had enough moments of humor to move it on the pro side. Galifianakis is insanely funny but he hasn't been utilized successfully much in movies. The first Hangover movie is the only comedy movie he's been in that's worked for me.