REVIEW: We're the Millers

By Chris Luckett

4 stars out of 5

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We’re the Millers is the type of comedy that has a simultaneously convenient and convoluted set-up. Like Hot Tub Time Machine or Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, We’re the Millers is built upon a dumb idea that requires a large suspension of logic and disbelief from the audience. Just like those movies, though, if you can do that, you’re in for a great time.

Jason Sudeikis plays a small-time pot dealer named David. David lives in an apartment building where he flirts with Rose (Jennifer Aniston), his stripper neighbour, and tries to ignore Kenny (Will Poulter), the awkward virgin living down the hall. One night, Kenny tries to stop some thugs in an alley from mugging Casey (Emma Roberts), a homeless girl he spots across the street. David joins to try and help, but ends up having all of his money and inventory stolen.

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Now deep in debt to a drug kingpin played by Ed Helms, he’s given one chance to save his life: he has to go down to Mexico, drive up a shipment of marijuana in an RV, and deliver it to clear his debt. Since one man crossing the American border in an RV could be suspicious, David recruits Rose, Kenny, and Casey to pretend to be his family on a road trip.

By this point in the review, you already know whether or not you’ll like We’re the Millers. If the ridiculous set-up is too much, the movie isn’t going to deliver. But if you can go along with it, the movie is full of great comedy.

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Sudeikis is hysterical as David, hitting the perfect notes between being a sarcastic jerk and affably sincere. Aniston shows herself to be game for anything, mostly shedding memories of her "Friends" character. Poulter and Roberts are both excellent in their roles, and the four work together remarkably well. It’s almost a shame the movie doesn’t naturally lend itself to an easy sequel.

We’re the Millers delivers lots of laughs and finds fresh humour in often ridiculous or cliche situations. A lot of the debt for the comedy’s success goes to the cast, although the writing is pretty sharp, too. It’s not the best comedy of the year so far – The To-Do List still wears that crown – but as far as entertaining and laugh-inducing comedies go, We’re the Millers does what it does very well.

REVIEW: Elysium

By Chris Luckett

4 stars out of 5

When Neill Blomkamp arrived on the scene in 2009 with the impossible-to-categorize masterpiece District 9, the world was taken by surprise. After it earned over $200 million and four Oscar nominations, Blomkamp was left with the challenge of following it up. Four years later, Elysium marks his triumphant return.

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In a timely parallel to our present, Elysium takes place in the year 2154, where the wealthy one per cent live on a wheel-shaped space station above the Earth (giving the movie its title) and the other 99 struggle every day back on the ground, amidst overpopulation, poverty, and disease. Elysium is so advanced that people who live there can be cured of every illness or injury in mere seconds.

Matt Damon plays Max, a factory worker on a robot assembly line. When he gets accidentally bathed with a lethal amount of radiation at his job, he finds out he has five days left to live – unless he can get to Elysium, where he could be cured. Standing in his way are Elysium’s ruthless Secretary of Defence (Jodie Foster) and the psychotic mercenary in her employ (Sharlto Copley).

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Just as District 9’s story actually told an allegory about Apartheid, Elysium is a thinly disguised examination of the haves and have-nots dividing the United States today. Not only is the future it envisions startlingly possible, but it works just as well as a statement on America’s foreign policies and the country’s constant battle with illegal immigrants.

For the bulk of the movie, Blomkamp’s ideas, social commentary, visual flair are enough to keep Elysium in the ranks of great modern sci-fi. Unfortunately, in the final act, the movie loses its ability to balance action with story and becomes a slightly more typical, guns-blazing, futuristic actioner.

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Even the best science-fiction can often be picked apart the more audiences scrutinize it. What differentiates the Loopers from the Men in Black 3s is how well they’re able to distract you while you’re watching them. Elysium does fantastically well for a good percentage of the movie, but can’t help losing its lustre alongside its logic by the end.

Elysium is a flawed movie that has great ideas it doesn’t quite know how to use and doesn’t end as strongly as it begins. Still, really good science-fiction is rare and Elysium is just that. It may not be another District 9, but it certifies that Neill Blomkamp is no one-hit-wonder and conclusively makes him one of the most promising directors working today.

REVIEW: The To-Do List

By Chris Luckett

4½ stars out of 5

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Almost every summer, a comedy tends to come along that stands high above not just the other comedies of that summer but ultimately above the whole year’s. The last decade’s summers have given the world Napoleon Dynamite, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Clerks II, the original Death at a Funeral, Tropic Thunder, In the Loop, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Bridesmaids, and last year’s criminally underseen 2 Days in New York. 2013 has now delivered The To-Do List.

Written and directed by Maggie Carey, The To-Do List takes the summertime coming-of-age story used in everything from Meatballs to Adventureland and finds freshness in the material by flipping convention on its head whenever possible.

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Aubrey Plaza plays Brandi Klark, a high school valedictorian who discovers at a post-graduation party that all her book smarts have left her completely ignorant and hopeless in the world of sex. With her freshman year of college a few months away, Brandi decides to spend the summer educating herself. (Her checklist of acts to master gives the comedy its title.)

Crude comedies walk a very fine line. For every 40-Year-Old Virgin that’s worked, there are ten My Boss’s Daughters that didn’t. The To-Do List could easily have become just another lewd comedy, but the movie invests so much of its time in the rich subplots of all the friends and family members of Brandi’s that it never gets too carried away with things. The story arcs involving Brandi’s boss (Bill Hader), her best friends (Alia Shawkat and Sarah Steele), and her family (Connie Britton, Clark Gregg, and Rachel Bilson) are all as rewarding as the central storyline.

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The movie also makes the very interesting choice of setting the movie in 1993. While that could have come off as a cheap excuse to cash in on ‘90s nostalgia and get some laughs out of parachute pants, The To-Do List again perfectly straddles the line between being hypocritical and being toothlessly reverent. The ‘93 setting leads also to a bounty of cultural references and a fantastic soundtrack.

After the let-downs of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and This is the End, the summer of ‘13 was looking pretty barren for laugh-out-loud comedies. Sure enough, though, one summer comedy always steps forward and stands above the rest. The To-Do List is going go down as being one of the best comedies of 2013.