{"id":6429,"date":"2006-07-15T21:59:39","date_gmt":"2006-07-16T01:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=6429"},"modified":"2006-07-15T21:59:39","modified_gmt":"2006-07-16T01:59:39","slug":"kicking-screaming-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/15\/kicking-screaming-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"Kicking & Screaming (2005)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kicking_and_Screaming\"<\/a>I have found that comedies, even the good ones, have become so utterly predictable, that it\u2019s not even funny. Pun intended. The good comedies are even predictable, and the mediocre ones are so predictable that I\u2019ve discovered I can really lay out what\u2019s going to happen before it happens. \u201cKicking and Screaming\u201d begins on a truly predictable note. Narration. Instead of leaving our main character to pretty much show the audience how inept or stupid he is the writers feel that the actor and director are so incompetent of explaining through actions what and who they are, that they must explain to us through narration.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s who I am, here\u2019s my situations, here\u2019s what I do, now watch the movie and pretend you\u2019re in suspense of what I\u2019ll do even though I\u2019ve already spelled it out for you.\u201d Of course, I have to ask, how can you expect the audience to enjoy a comedy when its main character is so utterly unlikable? Many Comedies have sported despicable or sleazy characters, but the main character here is unlikable, and you\u2019ll find your allegiances split with Duvall\u2019s character, and you won\u2019t even realize it when the film is over. Will Ferrell is sadly one of the many alums from SNL who had the chance to really become the next comedy legend, and failed big time.<\/p>\n

He failed because he felt starring in underwhelming unfunny comedies would garner much praise. And he\u2019s wrong. And I\u2019ve yet to find a film from him that made me laugh out loud. \u201cKicking and Screaming\u201d is not really comedy, more of a tragedy of a loser, and on some occasions, the writer seems to try and build a comedy around it, and it never translates to the audience. There\u2019s a scene where Phil is talking in front of people explaining what happened to the old coach before him and the audience breaks into laughter, and Phil replies \u201cI don\u2019t know why that\u2019s funny\u201d, which would sum up what this is about.<\/p>\n

Phil is a loser, his wife is put upon, his father is a prick, and everyone else is basically just petty and truly one-dimensional, and you wonder \u201cWhy is that funny?\u201d Why is Joely Fisher\u2019s character even with Phil? Why do we have to be subjected to another \u201cBad News Bears\u201d clone just to give Will Ferrell an excuse to act? Is this all there is to Ferrell\u2019s career? Mediocre comedies, and wasted talent? Ferrell, you should really re-consider your agent\u2019s power. How about firing him? After \u201cBewitched\u201d, \u201cOld School\u201d, and \u201cStarsky and Hutch\u201d, I wonder where that demented nutcase from \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d went. Now there\u2019s just you. Playing the same character in unfunny comedies like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have found that comedies, even the good ones, have become so utterly predictable, that it\u2019s not even funny. Pun intended. The good comedies are even predictable, and the mediocre ones are so predictable that I\u2019ve discovered I can really lay out what\u2019s going to happen before it happens. \u201cKicking and Screaming\u201d begins on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[219,340,570,974],"class_list":["post-6429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-comedy","tag-family","tag-k","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}