Film Review: What Men Want

"The Only Voices I Heard Were Joan Rivers And Tupac. And They Did Not Get Along..."

Acting as a wholly unnecessary and unwarranted "loose" remake of the Mel Gibson led What Women Want from 2000, Hairspray and Rock of Ages director, Adam Shankman, directs What Men Want, a terribly handled and woefully inept attempt at some form of comedy which sees Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures) take the lead role as Alison Davis, a successful sports agents who is left by the wayside after failing to be accepted for a work promotion in favour of her annoying, mostly white, big-headed colleagues. On the subsequent night out used to rid herself of her man-hating anger, she soon takes cues from Amy Schumer in I Feel Pretty by being the subject of an accidental injury which after a swift overnight recovery, leaves her with the ability to read the mind of every male she comes into contact with. Whilst I'm all for trashy comedies which regardless of their overall quality actually manage to make me laugh in the ilk of Bad Moms, Shankman's latest is unsurprisingly a woefully inept, painfully unfunny two hours, one made worse with obvious notions of grandeur which attempt to tap into the #MeToo generation and ends up landing face down in a burning bit of awfulness as it crawls its' way to the credits and offers you salvation away from what is one of the worst remakes there is and ever will be. 

With a fundamental false step from the outset as the movie attempts to introduce Henson's supposedly charming, lead character, the fact that I nearly left the cinema after being in her company for only twenty minutes didn't exactly bode well heading forward. Whilst I appreciate a movie led by a female in a position of power, for some unknown and bizarre reason, Shankman's direction allows Henson to become a screaming, irritating black hole of annoyance in the ilk of Lucas Cruikshank in Fred: The Movie as she literally bellows her dialogue from the far reaches of her annoying mouth for pretty much the entirety of the film's opening act. As the movie moves more into the mystical aspect, the word cliche doesn't even cover it, and as we stumble through the inevitable hook-ups and notions of deception cooked up by Hanson's Davis, her character becomes even more despicable after she takes advantage of the one saving grace in the movie in the form of Aldis Hodge's (Hidden Figures) Will, a thoughtful, calmly spoken single father who for some reason finds Davis absolutely irresistible. Whilst I am aware that What Men Want doesn't exactly have myself in mind when it comes to the desired target audience, with (massive stereotype incoming) the film primarily designed for drunken female sleepovers and bachelor parties, such a point doesn't shy away from the fact that Shankman's movie was an utter drag from start to finish. Woeful. 

Overall Score: 3/10

Film Review: Fist Fight

"We're Gonna Handle Our Differences Like Real Men..."

When reviewing a film such as Fist Fight, the first thing you have to realise is that the Ice Cube which is top-billed on such a movie is indeed the same Ice Cube famous for being the great wordsmith which invigorated the gangsta rap scene in the late 1980's with N.W.A and indeed the same Ice Cube whose latter-day career choices include seemingly blundering into a continuous array of comedy-based cinematic projects, with only a few actually being of some notable success such as 21 Jump Street and erm, 22 Jump Street. It comes as no real shock therefore that Fist Fight is nothing more than a lazy, thoughtless and cringe-worthy attempt of a comedy, with awful dialogue, a dwindling, lacklustre narrative, and one of the most pain-inducing performances I have ever seen from Charlie Day in a leading role which consists of a character who is slated for being friendly and kind and instead finds redemption and a sense of purpose by resorting to drug dealing, swearing at minors and unreasonable levels of violence. You know, all those things which make you "cool" nowadays. 

Although running for a reasonable length of 90 minutes, Fist Fight is one of those movies in which you absolutely feel every single second drag past until you reach a conclusion and final act which not only is generically mediocre, but smiles at you whilst it crackles at the thought of the money the audience has paid to watch such a dire attempt of a comedy. Although the blame doesn't entirely lie at the feet of Ice Cube, it just baffles me why this is the kind of film in which he has settled for after a strong start to an acting career which started with the likes of Boyz in the Hood and the culty favourite Friday, yet the real loser of the show is indeed Charlie Day who screams his way into a leading role which laughs at the state of modern-day education, resulting in the first case of a fictional character this year who has actively driven me to a straightforward high level of hatred. Saddled with jokes about underage sex, statutory rape, drug use, casual racism and a clanger of a mis-step in the form of a incredibly young child relaying lyrics from Big Sean to an audience of similarly aged children, Fist Fight is just poop from beginning to end. That's right, poop. I can be a child sometimes too. 

Overall Score: 3/10