Movie review: Arthur
I seem to be cursed. See, the thing is I have been writing more and more of these reviews, mainly because they are fun to do and force me to get out of the office and see more movies. Also, until I get inspired I think I have milked the dating advice cow dry and don’t want to force it. Anyway, I am enjoying writing these but have noticed that I seem to write better, longer, funnier reviews when I think the movie sucks. So last night (cheap movie night) I realized that I more or less liked the last two movies and had written pretty dry reviews. I saw Source Code on Monday and kind of liked it (as long as I could suspend my understanding of quantum physics as it relates to the human brain) and was going to write it up, but it seemed destined to be less than scintillating. So yesterday, when I was trying to decide what to see, I looked for the movie most likely to suck.
Ironically, my two best choices both starred Russel Brand and also both looked like they could put a diabetic into a permanent coma. Hop is a super cute Oedipal kiddie movie about the son of the Easter Bunny and Arthur is the story of a degenerate, privileged alcoholic British fop who is fabulously wealthy. I opted for Arthur as I have a natural inclination to like and be more forgiving of cartoons. That’s where I ran into my curse as, during the course of the movie, I found myself actually enjoying it.
This is weird. Arthur has all the elements of a movie I should hate with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. I despise movies of the super rich living fabulous lives. Ostentatious displays of wealth and privilege really annoy me, especially with the economy being what it is. I come from a long line of alcoholics so the constant drunken shenanigans that Arthur is constantly getting into should only bug me. Seeing pretty boys like Russel Brand score with women bugs me. I love an English accent on a woman but on a guy it is vaguely annoying, at least if I have to listen to it for more than an hour (sorry to all my British friends). The main love interest is blond, and I definitely prefer brunettes. But as the movie progressed, as much as I was looking to hate it, I found myself having a fairly fun movie going experience.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t great, or even especially good. It holds no candle to the original Arthur, or any other great movie out there. It does have it’s issues, which I will discuss (exploit) for my blogs benefit shortly. However, it was fun to watch and I found myself laughing out loud multiple times. Also, I did a little research into Russel Brand and found out that he is hated by Twilight fans, which brings him up several notches in my book. Twilight sucks.
Anyway, the movie. Russel Brand stars as Arthur, the over privileged billionaire heir of some ill defined multinational charity (?) or something. He drinks constantly, has sex with anything missing a Y chromosome, and generally bumbles through life with the help of his nanny Hobson and his chauffeur Bitterman (who, for some reason, has an English name while he is obviously Hispanic in both appearance and accent. He is played by Puerto Rican Luis Guzman). His domineering mother, who has all the maternal instincts of Freddy Kruegar, has decided he is going to have to marry the younger, bitchier version of herself or be cut off from his riches. Meanwhile, Arthur meets Naomi, who somehow has an illegal tour guide business (??? Apparently tourists in New York City are so desperate for tours, what with the great tour guide shortage and corresponding tour price increases, that they are willing to go to back alley tour sellers) who he falls in love with. Amusing drunken hijinx ensue. Arthur learns important life lessons while appearing to learn nothing. All the usual, predictable stuff happens.
That’s more or less it. Let’s get into the stars. First of all, the movie is pretty funny. One star. Some of the dialogue is especially funny. One star. Super hot Jennifer Garner plays the bitchy fiance, and at one point runs around in a corset and not much else. One star. Hobson, the nanny, played by Helen Mirren, is really a cool character. One star. Naomi, the love interest, manages to act in an intelligent and mature manner, perhaps in contrast to Arthur’s childlike stupidity. One star. The whole movie, for some undefinable reason, was kind of fun to watch. One star. Total, six stars.
Now the black holes. The whole movie is a whitewashed PC remake of a great movie (in the original movie, Arthur meets his love interest while she is shoplifting, not running a tour business without a license. Don’t they know that shop lifting is cool again? Just look at Lindsay Lohan). One black hole. As cool as the new, female Hobson is, the original male Hobson (played by the great John Gielgud) was far better. “I’ll alert the media, sir.” One black hole. The whole story is depressingly predictable, even for someone who had not seen the original. One black hole. While enjoyable, the entire movie really lacks any kind of real substance. It’s like watching an episode of Friends. You have fun watching it, but once it’s done you realized your life is in no way improved by the experience. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
Total: two stars. Not really great, or even good, but OK. This movie has no amazing cinematography that requires being seen on a big screen, so really if I were you I would wait until you can stream it off NetFlix. That being said, once it’s up you won’t regret watching it, especially if you can do it with a girl.
Tomorrow I will complete my review of Source Code, another depressingly good movie. Why is it I can’t find a crappy movie lately? Four months ago it was a struggle to find a movie that couldn’t be used as an emetic substitute.
I need to get back to the who-would-win questions. Last one I posted was who would win, Superman versus Galactus. I want to believe Galactus would win out, as if he is capable of eating entire planets he should be able to eat Krypton and Superman as well. On the other hand, he did go down when faced with six zombie superheros in Marvel Zombies, so I guess Superman could probably beat him (Superman image courtesy of the comic book t shirts).
For today I propose a question that seems simple until you think about it for a while. Who would win, Aquaman versus the Wonder Twins?
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