This is 40, Jack Reacher

This is 40:

Judd Apatow's "semi-sequel" to Knocked Up stars Paul Rudd and Apatow's actual wife, Leslie Mann, as a married couple with two girls, coming to terms with their age and relationship.  Even though this falls prey to the same things that have plagued Apatow's other works, like self-indulgent "sweetness," I thought it made up for in laughs.

This is 40 feels kind of like a mess, like more of a rough cut than a polished finished film, but I found myself laughing more than I thought I would.  Paul Rudd is great, and the kids, who are also Apatow's real life children, were surprisingly good.  And for you fans of Bridesmaids out there, Melissa McCarthy, in her small one-scene role, is fucking hilarious.  If you thought she was funny before, you can see her go over-the-top (I'm pretty sure the crew just told her to "go there" and let her go unleashed).  The script was pretty so-so (it tries too hard to be an Albert Brooks movie, who coincidentally stars in the film as Rudd's father), but the cast elevates the material.  So yeah, its sickeningly sweet and "relatable," but is pretty damn funny.

Rating: B-

Jack Reacher:

Think what you want about the 'real life' Tom Cruise, but the man is an amazingly dedicated actor.  I mean, at the age of 50 he was hanging off of the world's tallest building in Ghost Protocol for our enjoyment.  I assumed Jack Reacher would yet again be a showcase of Cruise's ass-kickery, even if it would be as intelligently written as the carved racial slurs on a bathroom stall.  But no.  Although there are a few glimmers of hope, Jack Reacher is probably the most boring "action" movie all year.  First off, from what I've read online, the character in the books it's based off of is 250 lbs and 6'5" or something like that (too lazy to fact check); so the best guy to play this brute force is...Tom Cruise?!  As awesome as he is, he's a tiny elf-man.

The story begins with an actually well-handled wordless sequence where a sniper randomly picks off five people and drives away.  Reacher, an ex-military outside-the-law drifter, catches wind of the guy police have taken in and tries to get to the bottom of this mystery (for the crime is "too perfect" and someone else must be responsible).  Him and some DA chick band together to get the bad guys, among whom documentarian Werner Herzog plays a villain.  OK, on paper this sounds pretty good, but in execution you just don't care about anything.  It plays more like a badly made mature crime-caper than an outright action flick, and fails at having any sort of stakes.  There's no real reason to cheer on Reacher, because for one he's a drifter with no ties to anyone (his death means nothing), and the accused sniper, even though he didn't shoot these people, he admits to having killed innocent people before.  The whole thing felt cheap and stupid, with Richard Jenkins and Robert Duvall wasting their talents with a weak script.  Bleh.  There's a decent car chase scene somewhere in there though.

Rating: D