I'm a huge Simon Pegg fan, I really enjoyed his BBC show "Spaced" and his films "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead" the latter of which being my favorite of his work thus far. So when I heard that he was in a new comedy "Run Fatboy Run" I was of course excited at the prospect of seeing more of Simon Pegg's humor on the big screen.
I of course ran into a few problems right away. One was that this film didn't get a wide enough release and was in and out of the theaters so quickly that I never even got a chance to see it, and second by the time I did get to see it I had already heard some pretty bad reviews of it and was getting ready for disaster.
Now, "Run Fatboy Run" isn't a bad film, in fact it's pretty good, the comedy is spot on, and you start to feel for the characters in the film right away. This is shown best with the panic attack Pegg's character Dennis endures as he is preparing to wed his pregnant girlfriend. As he runs away from the chapel, sweat pouring down his face, I could completely associate with the feeling of making a mistake and wanting to run. As the film progresses we are shown that Dennis never meant to leave his girlfriend, but was afraid of ruining her life, and this fear keeps him away from her until he sees that her new seemingly perfect boyfriend is planning on marrying her and taking her away from him forever. This is why Dennis decides to run the marathon in the film, to show her he can finish what he starts, and of course he does. Que sappy rom-com music and close the curtains on the chipper ending.
After viewing this film I sat back and digested what I just saw, it was really a standard romantic comedy with little substance and cookie cutter characters. You could replace Pegg with anyone, and get the same result. Honestly this film felt like a Hugh Grant vehicle that was given to Pegg instead. They didn't take advantage of his snarky comedic wit at all, but rather gave him stale situations in which to perform in. Sadly this film falls under the umbrella of rom-com features that if you've seen one, you've seen them all.
The shinning points from this film were the actors, including Simon Pegg, a surprisingly fit Hank Azaria, and one of my favorite British actors, Dylan Moran. With a comedic team like this in a film you would think the laughs would come much more frequently and feel more natural. Sadly they don't but few generally great comedic moments in the film had me laughing out loud.
For these reasons after watching "Run Fatboy Run" I felt that it was the cinematic equivalent of a Diet Coke, sure it has some interesting flavor and will leave you with a bittersweet aftertaste, but all the good stuff from Coke is gone and replaced by fake sugar that just makes it bland. "Run Fatboy Run" was an interesting film, just not one that I would say I would buy or honestly care about past the initial viewing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment