{"id":28607,"date":"2018-07-30T00:04:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T04:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=28607"},"modified":"2018-07-29T16:18:19","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T20:18:19","slug":"life-of-the-party-2018-blu-ray-dvd-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/30\/life-of-the-party-2018-blu-ray-dvd-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Life of the Party (2018) [Blu-Ray\/DVD\/Digital]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Are we still under the spell of Melissa McCarthy? Can we admit she\u2019s just a mediocre comedian trotting out endlessly trite and dull movie vehicles? After her attempt to revisit \u201cBack to School\u201d with her own silly, weird, often meandering comedy \u201cLife of the Party,\u201d I\u2019m pretty much over McCarthy. Beyond \u201cBridesmaids\u201d and \u201cSpy,\u201d she\u2019s never managed to impress and keeps relying on vehicles that become vanity projects with husband Ben Falcone who doesn\u2019t seem to know how to utilize McCarthy. One moment Deanna is hiding in the bushes crying after being dumped by her husband, the next as she burns her husband\u2019s possessions, it explodes in her face, causing her to comically plop on to the ground.<\/p>\n

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McCarthy is once again a mid-western gal named Deanna who\u2019s committed herself to being a wife and mom. After dropping her daughter off to college, her long time husband dumps her in favor of a younger woman. Distraught, Deanna decides she\u2019s going to go back to college to pursue her degree, and happens to conveniently sign up to the college her daughter Maddie belongs to. Now bonding with her and her sorority, Deanna begins learning a lot about herself; especially when she begins romancing a hunky young senior.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife of the Party\u201d jumps back and forth between saccharine middle aged romance to slapstick college comedy to the point where it\u2019s distracting, and McCarthy\u2019s character is more of a clich\u00e9 than an actual protagonist we can root for. McCarthy seems to aim for her own iteration of \u201cBack to School\u201d sans the raunch, and this doesn\u2019t offer her a lot of conflict whenever she\u2019s in college. Once she steps out she\u2019s more entrenched in real concerns like her divorce, and her husband\u2019s habit for flaunting his new marriage. The whole idea that both parents are at war with their daughter stuck in between is very rarely explored, and once she\u2019s in college there\u2019s a lot of focus on her romance with college student Jake (Luke Benward). Beyond a half baked rivalry with a college girl (a very gorgeous Debby Ryan) that never goes anywhere, the college back drop feels painfully tacked on.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure she and husband Falcone could draw consolation that they get to stuff their friends on-screen and indulge in some off script improv. You know, it\u2019s the kind where they talk non-stop but never actually say anything funny. McCarthy\u2019s become so rote and clich\u00e9 that it\u2019s tough not to catch on to what she\u2019s aiming for as the film progresses. The minute she has her drastic make over which magically makes her less frumpy and irritating, I thought to myself \u201cI bet there\u2019s a big dance number included somewhere.\u201d Lo and behold, there\u2019s a big eighties throwback college party and, well, you fill in the blanks. \u201cLife of the Party\u201d is a contrived, boring, and painfully silly vanity film that indicates McCarthy is willing to sacrifice her career so her husband can make bad movies.<\/p>\n

The release from Warner comes with \u201c\u201880\u2019s Party,\u201d a segment about the big eighties party scene with the cast and crew waxing nostalgic about the decade. \u201cMom Sandwich\u201d is a two minute look at how Stephen Root and Jacki Weaver\u2019s characters were actually based on McCarthy\u2019s parents. There are forty six minutes of deleted scenes, the silly \u201cLine-O-Rama,\u201d \u201cBill Hate-O-Rama\u201d which focuses o character Bill being berated at the dinner scene, and of course, a five minute gag reel.<\/p>\n