Review: Envy
May 3, 2004; Regal Falmouth #1
* * 3/4 (out of 4)
It's a hard sell to say that this movie is not low-brow comedy. The trailers haven't told much more about the plot beyond Jack Black's character inventing a spray product that makes dog poop mysteriously disappear, and Ben Stiller's character becomes wrought with jealousy. Yeah, that's the basics, but the to the movie's credit is that for the most part it avoids running rampant with the poop jokes. The film's funniest moments have nothing to do with feces; unfortunately, those moments are just a little too few and far between. There's nothing bad here, exactly... it's just that a lot of different ideas were thrown around, and more often than not they misfired.
What's good here is the casting. Both Tim (Stiller) and Nick (Black) are for the most part average guys. Stiller has made a livinglately by being the straight man in outlandish situations, but it's harder to pull that off without an off-the-wall partner. Once he gets rich and begins living it up, Black becomes a bit more crazy and outlandish, but it's still a very subdued role by Black's standards. These are two pretty normal guys, and at first that comes off as a little disconcerting considering the actors, but they pull it off very well. The funniest scene in the film is a conversation between the two in Tim's office; what the two talk about is completely ridiculous, but they do it completely deadpan and straight-faced, and it's a perfect sell. On the other side, filling in the role these two usually get hit with is Christopher Walken. He's proven in the last few years that he's funnier than anyone ever gave him credit for, but he's more off the wall here than I've ever seen him. It seems like he picked up this part just to be silly and have a good time, and that's exactly what he does.
Unfortunately, what this movie doesn't have is the momentum that usually comes with the two leads. In places, the movie drags pretty badly. A big part of that is because a lot of the things that Tim does that are supposed to be funny are fueled purely by jealousy - they're not good-intentioned plans that went wrong, but the results of Tim being too shallow to admit that his best friend has finally beaten him in something. Moreover, it never really feels like this changes - he confesses his blunders to Nick eventually, but even during that it feels like he's still condescending and unwilling to give the credit and praise deserved. Were it not for Nick's forgiveness underlining the worth of a good friendship, Tim would just come off as mean and nasty, with no redemption.
Like Stiller's Starsky & Hutch, this is another movie that suffers from the lack of the "big laugh." There's not really much that will keep an audience laughing after the credits have rolled; the joke that is supposed to supply that becomes a dead horse due to overexposure. The film shines in two places: when it gives normally-oddball actors purposefully ridiculous dialogue and doesn't allow them to physicalize it, and when the supporting cast is allowed to steal screen time. Walken is fantastic as the resident lunatic, as is the pitifully-underused Rachel Weisz as Tim's wife. It was good to see Ben Stiller and Jack Black trying to stretch a little more, but they need some material that is slightly better paced for it. This tried to be fast-paced, but no one was there to carry it through.
May 3, 2004; Regal Falmouth #1
* * 3/4 (out of 4)
It's a hard sell to say that this movie is not low-brow comedy. The trailers haven't told much more about the plot beyond Jack Black's character inventing a spray product that makes dog poop mysteriously disappear, and Ben Stiller's character becomes wrought with jealousy. Yeah, that's the basics, but the to the movie's credit is that for the most part it avoids running rampant with the poop jokes. The film's funniest moments have nothing to do with feces; unfortunately, those moments are just a little too few and far between. There's nothing bad here, exactly... it's just that a lot of different ideas were thrown around, and more often than not they misfired.
What's good here is the casting. Both Tim (Stiller) and Nick (Black) are for the most part average guys. Stiller has made a livinglately by being the straight man in outlandish situations, but it's harder to pull that off without an off-the-wall partner. Once he gets rich and begins living it up, Black becomes a bit more crazy and outlandish, but it's still a very subdued role by Black's standards. These are two pretty normal guys, and at first that comes off as a little disconcerting considering the actors, but they pull it off very well. The funniest scene in the film is a conversation between the two in Tim's office; what the two talk about is completely ridiculous, but they do it completely deadpan and straight-faced, and it's a perfect sell. On the other side, filling in the role these two usually get hit with is Christopher Walken. He's proven in the last few years that he's funnier than anyone ever gave him credit for, but he's more off the wall here than I've ever seen him. It seems like he picked up this part just to be silly and have a good time, and that's exactly what he does.
Unfortunately, what this movie doesn't have is the momentum that usually comes with the two leads. In places, the movie drags pretty badly. A big part of that is because a lot of the things that Tim does that are supposed to be funny are fueled purely by jealousy - they're not good-intentioned plans that went wrong, but the results of Tim being too shallow to admit that his best friend has finally beaten him in something. Moreover, it never really feels like this changes - he confesses his blunders to Nick eventually, but even during that it feels like he's still condescending and unwilling to give the credit and praise deserved. Were it not for Nick's forgiveness underlining the worth of a good friendship, Tim would just come off as mean and nasty, with no redemption.
Like Stiller's Starsky & Hutch, this is another movie that suffers from the lack of the "big laugh." There's not really much that will keep an audience laughing after the credits have rolled; the joke that is supposed to supply that becomes a dead horse due to overexposure. The film shines in two places: when it gives normally-oddball actors purposefully ridiculous dialogue and doesn't allow them to physicalize it, and when the supporting cast is allowed to steal screen time. Walken is fantastic as the resident lunatic, as is the pitifully-underused Rachel Weisz as Tim's wife. It was good to see Ben Stiller and Jack Black trying to stretch a little more, but they need some material that is slightly better paced for it. This tried to be fast-paced, but no one was there to carry it through.
posted by Matt S. at
11:12 PM
