- I was caught off guard by a script that didn’t have the two leads getting off on each other’s mutual humiliation, that the movie didn’t rely on humiliation humour to be funny, and that Tina Fey got just as many jokes as Steve Carell. How refreshing! Some of the jokes went on too long (the extended car chase scene) or just fell flat, and there were definitely some unnecessarily saccharine moments that I wish had been dealt with a little more deftly, but overall I was pleasantly surprised by this.
There was also minimal “Woman is crazy, man is lazy!” rom-com dynamic, which was a relief. Married couples in movies are either perfectly fine or have unsolvable problems, so I liked that Claire’s and Phil’s challenges were rather bland, fly-in-the-ointment calibre issues. It’s okay to have problems in your marriage without wanting to rip your spouse’s face off! - Hey there, bit part Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig. Not really necessary, to be honest.
- Somewhere out there in TV land, Cathy Geiss is very jealous of Liz Lemon.
- James Franco’s character goes by the nickname Taste but his actual name is… Tom Felton.
- Syphilis joke!
- My favourite person who worked on the film has to be the person credited as “Costumer to Mark Wahlberg” who, if you have not seen any of the promo materials, spends the entire movie dressed like this. Speaking of which, I want Wahlberg to do more comedy.
- The last time I actually liked Ray Liotta in anything it was because Anthony Hopkins was feeding Liotta’s brain to a child on transatlantic flight. This does not change my opinion.
- I was acutely aware through the entire movie that at no point had Claire and Phil actually kissed (until the end), which I thought was weird. It’s as if the director thought the world would explode if Liz Lemon and Michael Scott made out.
- There was a lot of stupid, far-fetched stuff in this, notably Mark Wahlberg’s unnecessary involvement — come on, Veronica Mars could have found the Tripplehorns in ten minutes and with only her cell phone to help her!
- I don’t have much to say about this one other than that it was much better than expected and will do well on DVD.
Date Night
I’d see more movies featuring Fey and Carell as a comedy duo.
IMDB Plot Synopsis In New York City, a case of mistaken identity turns a bored married couple's attempt at a glamorous and romantic evening into something more thrilling and dangerous.
It was a lot better than I expected as well.