Category: Movies

This is 40 had a lot of things going for it:  It was written and directed by Judd Apatow.  It was the spin-off of Knocked Up, and it was based on two of Knocked Up’s well liked characters.  It featured a lot of great talent, but the problem is that none of it went anywhere.  It was still funny in places, very funny in fact, but it just lacked cohesion.

This movie follows Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) as they try to navigate turning 40.  Their kids are getting older and harder to deal with, their parents drive them crazy, and their jobs are not going well.  They are just having a hard time making it all work.

Now Mann and Rudd are very funny, so this premise sounds great, but the problem is that there is no real story.  It is just them having a hard time getting older.  The crappy parents thing could have been one story, or their jobs going south could have been another, but instead of picking something and exploring it, we get a bunch of little vignettes, so nothing really keeps us engaged.

Like I have said the cast is wonderful, and they almost make this movie work.  Considering all of this movie’s flaws, I would still probably watch a sequel just to see all these people work together again.  Because if they had gotten a script with any meat on it at all this would have been a good movie.

It has been awhile since Judd Apatow has given us a full fledged hit, and I think This is 40 could have been one, but instead of giving us one decent story, he gave us like four ‘meh’ stories.  Still, these are all good actors in good roles. so maybe Apatow can bring it all together for This is 50.

I am going to start off by saying I quite liked the first Percy Jackson movie.  It was campy yet fun, and it offered an interesting spin on Greek Mythology.  Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters on the other hand, while still campy, is no longer fun.  They made this sequel because they thought they could do it cheaper and make a profit.  Not because anyone particularly wanted to do it.

Percy Jackson has not been up to much since the last movie, and other Half-Bloods have been gaining more fame than him, but never fear the world is in danger, so it is time for Percy Jackson to save the world.  Well not quite, there is this tree girl, and now he has a Cyclops brother, but really it is just Percy Jackson off on an adventure.  l I had hoped it would be an adventure anyway, but really it is more like they take a cab to Washington D.C., and then they boat to an island.

This movie really misses any sort of imagination the first movie had.  Instead of modern takes on Greek Mythological locations, we get just normal places.  Cool Greek monsters?  The title would have you believe that there are a bunch in this movie, but there are only three main ones, and they are not that exciting.  Along those same lines, this so called Sea of Monsters is actually a Sea of Monster, yes just one.  So disappointing.

The acting was a weak point in the first movie, but it is much worse this time around.  Thor Freudenthal the director is apparently no Chris Columbus, and he doesn’t know how to get any of his actors to do anything convincingly.  With the exception of Nathan Fillion who is as charming as ever, but he is in this movie for like five minutes and then cashes his check and goes home.  Not that I can say I blame him.

This movie had no love.  A boardroom of people decided to try one more time to get some money out of this book series, and they cobbled together the bare minimum of resources to get it done.  It is a shame because the first one played up the cheese with a wink and a smile, but this one just gives us a shrug and a grimace.  If Percy gets signed up for any more adventures, I will not be watching them.