Vapoorize This
It is somehow appropriate that the central plot device in Envy is dog poo, because this abysmal offering by Barry Levinson stinks to high heaven.
The Jack Black-Ben Stiller vehicle details what happens when one (Black) of a pair of friends with identically conventional lives suddenly hits it big, leaving the other (Stiller) to literally live in his shadow.
Corporate drones, best friends and neighbors Tim (Stiller) and Nick (Black) ride to work together every day, and it is during these interminable drives that dreamer Nick comes up with the idea for Vapoorize, a spray that makes doggy doo disappear. Tim dismisses the idea, which turns out to clean up in all ways including financial. Tim, who had an opportunity to buy into the project, spends the next hour or so of this drearily unfunny movie seething and plotting against his good-hearted friend with the help of a bizarre homeless guy named J-Man (Christopher Walken).
Envy wants to be a farce with an absurdist edge, but fails at every turn. The acting by Stiller and Black is flat. Walken, who is suitably weird and compelling in every movie he's in, is out of sorts here, delivering his trademarked weirdness with none of his characteristic enthusiasm. The lovely Rachel Weisz, as Stiller's wife, gives an uneven performance, and Amy Poehler, as Black's wife, is so over-the-top that she verges on the hysterical.
But the big problem is the script by Steve Adams. There is a funny kernel of an idea here—one that TV's The Simpsons mined effectively in an early episode—about how a schlub can become successful while a hard working guy can't get a break. Where the movie goes wrong is that Black's Nick is not only a likeable guy, but presumably a smart one. It's easy to see how his idea could work and make money. And when he does, he happily shares the wealth with best friend Tim. That Tim is envious is sort of understandable, but his envy doesn't make him sympathetic or funny. And a farce needs to be funny.
The absurdist touches are abundant—Black's castle-like estate sited in a suburban neighborhood, a long sequence involving a dead horse, Poehler's run for State Senate and even the signature theme song that runs throughout commenting on the action. They don't work, simply because they don't make any sense in the context of the movie. The horse and senate sub-plots do fuel the story and lead to the inevitable conclusion, but they're handled so poorly that by the time they collide, we've been spending so much time checking our watches that we don't care.
The waste of talent here verges on the criminal. All of these actors and technicians have been responsible for far better material and that they waste their time in this cinematic ca-ca is depressing.
What this movie needs is a spritz of "cinepoorize" to make it disappear from theatres as soon as possible.
The Jack Black-Ben Stiller vehicle details what happens when one (Black) of a pair of friends with identically conventional lives suddenly hits it big, leaving the other (Stiller) to literally live in his shadow.
Corporate drones, best friends and neighbors Tim (Stiller) and Nick (Black) ride to work together every day, and it is during these interminable drives that dreamer Nick comes up with the idea for Vapoorize, a spray that makes doggy doo disappear. Tim dismisses the idea, which turns out to clean up in all ways including financial. Tim, who had an opportunity to buy into the project, spends the next hour or so of this drearily unfunny movie seething and plotting against his good-hearted friend with the help of a bizarre homeless guy named J-Man (Christopher Walken).
Envy wants to be a farce with an absurdist edge, but fails at every turn. The acting by Stiller and Black is flat. Walken, who is suitably weird and compelling in every movie he's in, is out of sorts here, delivering his trademarked weirdness with none of his characteristic enthusiasm. The lovely Rachel Weisz, as Stiller's wife, gives an uneven performance, and Amy Poehler, as Black's wife, is so over-the-top that she verges on the hysterical.
But the big problem is the script by Steve Adams. There is a funny kernel of an idea here—one that TV's The Simpsons mined effectively in an early episode—about how a schlub can become successful while a hard working guy can't get a break. Where the movie goes wrong is that Black's Nick is not only a likeable guy, but presumably a smart one. It's easy to see how his idea could work and make money. And when he does, he happily shares the wealth with best friend Tim. That Tim is envious is sort of understandable, but his envy doesn't make him sympathetic or funny. And a farce needs to be funny.
The absurdist touches are abundant—Black's castle-like estate sited in a suburban neighborhood, a long sequence involving a dead horse, Poehler's run for State Senate and even the signature theme song that runs throughout commenting on the action. They don't work, simply because they don't make any sense in the context of the movie. The horse and senate sub-plots do fuel the story and lead to the inevitable conclusion, but they're handled so poorly that by the time they collide, we've been spending so much time checking our watches that we don't care.
The waste of talent here verges on the criminal. All of these actors and technicians have been responsible for far better material and that they waste their time in this cinematic ca-ca is depressing.
What this movie needs is a spritz of "cinepoorize" to make it disappear from theatres as soon as possible.
