Note: This review may contain some spoilers, but I will try to keep them at a minimum.
I went into Trainwreck with some really low expectations. I really know nothing about Amy Schumer, I like Bill Hader but he is a bit hit and miss with me, and I don't think that Judd Apatow has made a really good movie since The 40 Year Old Virgin (I know that Knocked Up was well received, but I was never a real fan). I can honestly say, however, that I was pleasantly surprised by the movie. It was funny when it needed to be, it was serious when it needed to be, and I think that it hit both aspects very well. It was an overall well done romantic comedy.
Let's first start with Amy Schumer. There is a lot of talk about her lately, but I have not actually seen her in anything prior to this movie. I personally thought that she was extremely funny throughout the movie. Her character was a bit over the top, as were most of the other characters, but I think this was done to show her many flaws, thus the name of the movie. Her character truly was a trainwreck. She was messed up in all sorts of ways, and didn't think that she deserved anything to go right for her at any point in her life. So when things did start to go her way, she would push the people in her life away and put up a wall, telling herself that she didn't need anyone and it was better off this way.
The rest of the main cast was good, but none of them really stood out. Bill Hader was fine, but he wasn't anything extraordinary, but his character didn't really need to be. But where the movie really excelled was in the cameos. Lebron James was a big part of the marketing for the movie, and the scenes he was in were very good and memorable. There were several other cameos, including Matthew Broderick and Marv Albert in a really funny intervention scene, but the real winner here was John Cena. John Cena, as his wrestling personality, is a cheesy, cornball actor that plays to kids, but his character in this movie was the complete opposite. He really only had two scenes in the movie, and I can promise you that if you take nothing else away from this movie, those two scenes will stick with you long after the credits roll. They were by far the two best scenes in the whole movie.
Outside of the acting, the story was nothing special and nothing new. In fact, I kept waiting and hoping for something out of the ordinary to happen, but it just never happened. If you have seen one of any hundred other romantic comedies in your life, you already know how this one is going to play out, but the movie does a good job of telling the story, even if there is nothing there to blow you away. The movie seemed to know what it was, and so it really pushed the comedy, and only let the story play out as it needed to so that the audience can have closure at the end.
If I can say nothing else about Trainwreck, I will say that it feels more real than other romantic comedies. By this, I mean that the situations these characters get in throughout the movie is very adult, and never finds a reason to try to sit down in that PG-13 area that most romantic comedies feel the need to put themselves in. I personally think this was a huge plus for the movie. There is nothing I can't stand more than when a movie is just trying to pander to its intended audience, instead of just letting the movie go where it should go. Trainwreck does not let itself give in to anything, and I can assume that is why it wasn't found by a larger audience at the box office. If you are looking for an adult romantic comedy, that will genuinely make you laugh out loud on more than one occasion, than Trainwreck is the perfect movie for you.
My rating for Trainwreck is 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment