So I’m watching this movie and I’m wondering if this is the birth of a new comedy team or just false labor. Good casting, great actors, good director, funny trailer, and… mediocre movie.
So I’m watching this movie and I’m wondering if this is the birth of a new comedy team or just false labor. Good casting, great actors, good director, funny trailer, and… mediocre movie.
I’m watching Due Date, or what it ends up being, which is Planes, Trains, and The Hangover when I find myself actually rooting for the movie to get better. It doesn’t. Due Date is a movie that tries so hard and wants to be better than it is. Which is kind of a shame. Swing and a miss, unfortunately.
Peter (Downey Jr.) and Ethan (Galifianakis) get thrown off a plane due to a “misunderstanding” and have to drive cross country to get to Los Angeles in tme for the birth of Downey’s child. OK, ticking clock– check! but the problem is, with a movie like this you really need to care about the journey and the characters. And you kinda don’t.
John Candy and Steve Martin knew how to play interesting characters without having them be so “extreme” that they come off as either unlikeable or unbelievable, as Robert Downey Jr. and Zack Galifianakis do.
This movie is essentially a Hangover on the road from director Todd Phillips and that’s ultimately what makes it boring and uninteresting. There’s nothing we haven’t seen before, in one form or another from the jokes to the set pieces from The Hangover or Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Downey’s a tool and Zack’s a weirdo. Got it. But where does it go from there? Not very far. Unless you count the actual mileage. Even the attempts at emotional depth just fall flat because they seemed shoehorned in between Zack acting goofy. And he has a dog.
I guess this is the new trend now. Making a new movie that is exactly like a previous movie? Add a dog! Paranormal Activity 2 and Due Date! Now with more canines!
And in the scenes where you really have to suspend disbelief, like getting away from the Mexican Border Crossing Agents, it was so ridiculous one of them may as well have been a wizard casting spells. I can only disbelieve so far, and I like Harry Potter. If you are going to ground your movie in reality, you need to kinda keep it there.
I will say the talents of Robert and Zack make a bad movie into a watchable mediocre one. Even in roles that don’t really have anything to offer, they still manage to breathe some life into them. Next time, give good actors something to act with. I’m just saying. It doesn’t all have to be masturbation jokes and falling down. In fact, there was so much falling down I thought I was in a Jennifer Aniston movie where everyone was wearing high heels. Actually, I would go see that movie. And I don’t know what the hell Jamie Fox was doing in the movie, other than introducing a subplot that goes nowhere. What a waste.
If this movie was pitched as Hangover on the Road then the studio got what they paid for. Unfortunately we as the audience didn’t.
—Chris Mancini
