Bad movie night: The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 2:14 pm
https://imdb.com/title/tt0180052
This movie doesn't deserve the 3.8/10 it's gotten at IMDB. It's a solid 5.1 at least.
Sure, some questionable decisions were made. Casting Eddie Murphy as the straight man in a sci-fi adventure comedy was one such decision. Writing so few jokes - and probably expecting the comedy to be carried by Murphy's ad-libbing - was another. Making almost all the jokes be android sex jokes was another. (To be fair, one of them is hilarious.) Spending $100 million to polish a turd was another.
Oh yeah, it made back $7 million globally. Oops!
The usually serious action is punctuated by raving weirdness. Example: after a dramatic loss of android power (seriously), a rescuer brings out jumper cables and affixes them to the android's ear and, um, dong. Example: a man in a kilt plays an accordion because Scottish culture. Example: Hillary Clinton is on the $10,000 bill.
It's hard to be bored when you're staring in disbelief for 1 out of every 5 minutes.
But it's a solid popcorn flick. It's got solid effects, solid writing, solid acting, solid romantic tension, and even a solid climactic twist. The action usually borders on exciting. That's kind of the problem, though: it's solid, but nothing about it is great. And when you go into a movie expecting Eddie Murphy to tickle your funny bone but end up being entertained in a slightly uncomfortable way by his weird friends, you kind of want to get your Hillaries back.
Quality: 5.3/10
Stimulation: 7/10
This movie doesn't deserve the 3.8/10 it's gotten at IMDB. It's a solid 5.1 at least.
Sure, some questionable decisions were made. Casting Eddie Murphy as the straight man in a sci-fi adventure comedy was one such decision. Writing so few jokes - and probably expecting the comedy to be carried by Murphy's ad-libbing - was another. Making almost all the jokes be android sex jokes was another. (To be fair, one of them is hilarious.) Spending $100 million to polish a turd was another.
Oh yeah, it made back $7 million globally. Oops!
The usually serious action is punctuated by raving weirdness. Example: after a dramatic loss of android power (seriously), a rescuer brings out jumper cables and affixes them to the android's ear and, um, dong. Example: a man in a kilt plays an accordion because Scottish culture. Example: Hillary Clinton is on the $10,000 bill.
It's hard to be bored when you're staring in disbelief for 1 out of every 5 minutes.
But it's a solid popcorn flick. It's got solid effects, solid writing, solid acting, solid romantic tension, and even a solid climactic twist. The action usually borders on exciting. That's kind of the problem, though: it's solid, but nothing about it is great. And when you go into a movie expecting Eddie Murphy to tickle your funny bone but end up being entertained in a slightly uncomfortable way by his weird friends, you kind of want to get your Hillaries back.
Quality: 5.3/10
Stimulation: 7/10
