Movie review: The Other Guys

Well, my plans for the summer didn't exactly pan out quite the way I expected. As some of you may remember, my plans for the summer consisted (in part) of watching plenty of movies and subsequently doing reviews. But, as you can clearly see, I haven't posted any reviews for the past couple months. I've been watching movies, but just haven't been able to do the reviews. Mostly because I spent the majority of the summer with my family, so I chose to spend my time with them rather than sitting in front of a computer. But now that I am back home, I'm able to catch up on some of my reviews. Since I have several movies that I need to catch up on reviewing, and since I'm probably going to be pretty busy with the semester starting next week, these reviews are probably going to be pretty brief...at least until I'm able to catch back up on them.


The Other Guys (2010)
Netflix streaming
Rating: 2.5/5
viewing: initial

I wasn't all that impressed with this movie. I had heard that it was pretty funny, and it's from the same director (Adam McKay) of movies such as Anchorman and Talladega Nights, so I was expecting it to be pretty humorous. But there were only a few scenes that I found myself briefly laughing. It was pretty disappointing. Most of what McKay does is usually hilarious. Mostly because he has found a formula for his comedies that he has been able to make work. Of course, the downside of that is that most of his movies have started to all feel the same. That might be due in large part to the fact that Will Ferrell usually plays the lead role...and that role is usually practically the same character. The first few movies, it was hilarious. But the more that he plays that role, the more it starts to just feel annoying and like it's the same thing I've seen time and time again. In The Other Guys, Will Ferrell's character did start out as somewhat more of the straight man...but there was enough of a presence of his "zany" character to begin with that it never really felt right. Then, as the movie went on and he got zanier and zanier, it just felt like "ugh...not this again." I did think, however, that Mark Wahlberg did a great job. He is a much funnier actor than what some people might give him credit for. As you could probably guess from my review so far, my recommendation is: pass. It wasn't unpleasant to watch, but I wouldn't have been missing out on anything if I had never seen it. If you are wanting to see a McKay/Ferrell movie, I say just stick to either Anchorman and Talladega Nights. Even if you've already seen them, I think you'd have a better time re-watching them than you would watching The Other Guys. If you are wanting a movie where Ferrell isn't playing that same type of character, I'd say go with Stranger Than Fiction. And if you are wanting Wahlberg in a comedic role, go for I Heart Huckabees.

Ok...that's all for now. I'll try to get more reviews up in the next few days.