The Dilemma

So I had thought this movie looked semi-entertaining. Heck it boasted a nicely rounded cast of three good actors. It's also Ron Howard's first comedy in over ten years. This movie had great potential. It opened in the number #2 spot this past weekend and has taken in over $20 million, with a budget of $70 million.

The movie follows the lives of two couples, played by Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Connelly and Kevin James and Winona Ryder. Vaughn's character catches Ryder's character cheating with another man, Channing Tatum. Now he deals with his 'dilemma' of whether or not to tell his best friend about his wife's infidelity.

This movie was a hit or miss, and unfortunately was a big miss. The plot didn't seem to make up it's mind on whether it wanted to be a comedy or a drama. Vaughn's character has a monologue with God where he starts crying but then wraps it up with some un-funny jokes. It just went back and forth searching for what it wanted to do with these characters. Pile that on to a horrible predictable and cliche'd plot arch, and you've got a seriously unfunny comedy movie. If a movie is going to be grossly predictable, it better be laugh out loud funny. This was not the case. There were several little bits that produced a little chuckle here and there, but nothing I couldn't do without. The women's character were extremely undeveloped and there was no need to have such great names as Winona Ryder and Jennifer Connelly fill those shoes. These minor characters could've easily gotten the job done with no-name actors. Oh, I forgot to mention Queen Latifah was in the movie, which is probably how the conversation went between the producer and screen writer went. It was as if they wrote her character in at the last minute - an extremely unnecessary character at that. She didn't progress the story and her lines were not funny. There was no point in her character. Overall, this plot was a major bust on many levels.

There were some great songs in this movie. Oh and the cars were very pretty. That's about it on the technical side.

Now, to go back to what was mentioned about the plot, that's not to say that the actors did a horrible job. Vaughn was Vaughn. The same character he's played in all of his recent movies. Connelly and Ryder were genuine in their small parts. Kevin James was what you'd expect as well. Unfortunately, their comedic timing couldn't help the dialogue. There were several instances where I literally cringed when a bit just dropped silent where there was obviously a spot for the audience to respond.

I'd say that Ron forgot he was doing a comedy movie halfway into the movie and just pieced what he had together. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this movie. The elements just didn't come together like he planned I'm sure. "you killed my fish" -- The Dilemma