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Just Married
The slapstick in this movie is utterly perfect, and while watching it I began thinking how great it would be for the director to do something less cheesy, more… all-out slapstick of old. So I’m pretty happy to hear he’s doing the new Pink Panther movie. Of all the contemporary directors I’m aware of, he’s the only one who can hope to approach the Panther like the originals. But onto Just Married... I didn’t think I’d ever be comfortable watching Ashton Kutcher for a whole movie, but he’s not too annoying. The whole opening, which precedes the flashback that is the bulk of the movie, is brilliant. Brittany Murphy is always worth watching, and this movie, which is by no means my kind of movie, proves this point for me. It drags as the gags repeat themselves and the story becomes a simple working-towards-the-ending, but overall, one of the better modern comedies.
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:13 pm
[...] The real question with movies like this has to be first, how good could it really have been, honestly? The original Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers were on the whole no masterpieces in themselves, especially the sequels. Honestly the only things I missed in this remake (remembering that Burt Kwouk and Herbert Lom came later in the series for all those IMDb whiners …) are the things you can’t replace – Peter Sellers’ performance and Blake Edwards’ sense of class. Henry Mancini’s score is used pretty well (better than the passing glimpse we got of the Herbie theme in Fully Loaded), but Christophe Beck’s techno updating of the music in places totally betrays the obvious (not to mention futile) attempt to bring it to the kids of today. Likewise, the production design, right down to the look of the characters themselves (oh, look, it’s Steve Martin with something under his nose), could’ve used a little more dedication. Kevin Kline and Martin do a decent enough job, and Jean Reno escapes the movie entirely untarnished, while Beyoncé simply does Goldmember again. The real success here is director Shawn Levy’s, and I knew he could pull this movie off the day I saw Just Married. The slapstick here brought me near close to tears in places, especially the rehash of the classic globe gag. So aside from the obvious absence of Sellers and the irreplacable 60s vibe, honestly? This was as good as it was ever going to be, and I wouldn’t mind another helping. [...]