Lord of Leisure

I couldn’t even pull a new face for this mini meh. Meh is indeed right here.

The end credits rolled at the end of Uncle Drew with an extra scene where an ex-girlfriend who clearly was a bad human being and stole oxygen was trying to get back with the guy she used and threw out towards the beginning of the film. I have no idea how that scene ends as I needed to go for a walk after struggling to stay awake for the hour and a half-ish that the film filled the screen. The audience was light in number, not a surprise considering it was a Monday, but there were many times I forgot there was anyone else there considering that they also seemed to be lapsed into comas.

The silence from the audience was deafening.

Uncle Drew is the latest attempt it seems at a sporting comedy thing where various stereotypes are confronted, used to alleged comic effect with a heartwarming tale that ends with everyone winning over the bad guys who did our heroes wrong or whatever. This is a clear example of where some films rely too much on crutches of American culture, and pretty much then google all other plots of films to copy and paste enough bits to then get away with a screenplay that will be just different enough not to allow for accusations of plagiarism to be valid.

I can’t even recall a more “phoned-in” film this year through the parts I was awake for Uncle Drew.

The plot was too formulaic, the characters I couldn’t give a damn about at any time during the whole misadventure. The jokes were I guess were supposed to be there but the one joke that came closest to me breaking more than a smile was when Shaquille O’Neal was compared to being Wolverine’s grandfather. One. One Joke. That one joke also failed to make me break out in anything resembling a laugh. This is supposed to be a comedy, right?

In fact one could argue that we had one example of a much better comedy to wait for and it’s Ant Man Vs. The Wasp which we still have a few weeks to wait for in the UK. It was like a prize on a gameshow where we lost and we just had to look at what we could have been watching had we won instead. Then they wheeled out Uncle Drew for us losers.

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Oceans 8, meet Paul’s Yawn.

I can actually cut to the chase about Oceans 8; This was boring.

It’s no joke sadly, I was honestly bored while sat down in the cinema watching the latest glitzy heist / con artist entry in what seems to now the “Oceans” franchise. It’s likely that you all remember the 2001 remake of the original 60s hit? It stared the Clooneist of Georges among various other stars like Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts.

The central premise of Oceans 11 was that our elite thieves of our hearts as well as money set their sights on robbing Andy Garcia blind while a boxing match was being played out in Las Vegas. Cue a few mishaps, a bad English accent from Don Cheadle and some frankly awesome music set up various sequels there after of varying quality.

So I can only conclude that Hollywood decided enough time had past from Oceans 13 and it was time to milk the same teat once more for everyone’s hard earned cash. The thing is, I don’t think it’s the cast’s fault. Why even remark on that? Well this time, it’s the turn of the ladies to take centre stage.

Much like the remake of Ghostbusters back in 2015, the main cast of men was replaced by women, and there are some find choices here with decent acting chops to say the least. Sandra Bullock plays Debbie Ocean, who happens to be the sister to Danny Ocean (formally George Clooney) which automatically raised the question of….. how come we didn’t know about her before? Well therein lies the rub. Rather than make the clean break from the previous films, Oceans 8 is a follow-on, even going as far as getting a couple of the original cast members to turn up. This means that really, they are relying on Nostalgia to hold the rest of this film up and that’s where it gets a bit silly.

Wonder if they are watching the film back too…..

Danny Ocean’s dead ladies. They make that clear from the first couple of minutes in fact. I suspect it’s more down to the fact they couldn’t get Clooney to come back in any shape and form for his “endorsement” for this sequel, and in a strange sort of they then have that hang over moments of the film all the way through. What’s worse, it appears to be almost the same plot, involving stealing stuff that’s worth a lot while getting one over on an Ex. Hell they even have pretty much the same scene between Debbie Ocean and her friend Lou (Cate Blanchett) as George Clooney and Brad Pitt have in the first remake when it comes to the ex. The only twist here is the Ex had Debbie put in prison, so it’s pretty much just straight up revenge. Continue reading →