Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I have to say that the new trailer for FUN WITH DICK AND JANE actually made me chuckle. The first trailer I was kind of indifferent on... I really dislike Tea Leone. She's pretty in a mousey kinda way, but for some reason she just grates on me. Now we have a review from our spy "Psychedelic." I'm not quite sure I agree with his point of view of "angst in suburbia" and his desire to kill it as a subgenre, but he does have some interesting things to say about this Jim Carrey vehicle. Enjoy!
Hey Harry and Halloween Horrorfreaks,
A vicious black slime creature with fangs wrapped itself around me. It sank into my heart. Squeezed. I stiffened from thickening blood. Sickly black veins pulsed all over my body. It dragged me to the Pacific Galleria in Sherman Oaks for an advanced screening of Fun With Dick And Jane starring Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni.
Dick (Carrey) gets a promotion. Jane (Leoni) quits her job. The corporate bubble bursts in 2000. Dick is out of a job. Dick lounges around the house. Dick and Jane spend severance money. Movie misses opportunity for biting satire of materialistic suburbia. Dick tries to get job. Jane tries to get job. Not very funny attempts follow. All their goodies including lawn are taken away. But no one really cares since they’re shallow corporate yuppies. The first 45 minutes or so are dull. Then suddenly…
Dick robs a store. Jane helps Dick. Dick and Jane wear funny costumes when robbing. The movie gets funny. Why didn’t they do this earlier? There’s far too little store and bank robbing that should be the heart of the movie. Dick does a funny dance at a stiff business bar. It’s a good scene, pure Carrey. Then we get to a big bloated ending that’s blahhhh.
Jim Carrey works overtime trying to compensate for a limp script. Tea Leoni is miscast. At most, she’s a supporting player. Quite frankly, I don’t like her very much. They should have gone with Cameron Diaz, who I seem to recall was originally cast, or maybe Felicity Huffman. Richard Jenkins delivers a nice drunken frazzled turn as one of the corporate executives who shafted everyone. Overall, the movie is okay at best, but mostly dull. It needs to be cut to get the robbing scenes sooner. It’s maybe worth a video rental.
On a side note, it’s about time for a vicious send up of the whole angst in suburbia sub-genre. This movie or the brain-dead Mr. & Mrs. Smith are not what I have in mind. The Ice Storm, Ordinary People, Six Feet Under, Weeds, perhaps Garden State, Me and You and Everyone We Know, etc.--- They need to go down HARD. Trey and Matt? Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker? Anyone else have suggestions?
The black slime had pooled below me during the movie. I thought I was all clear. But when I exited, their screeching wails deafened. They pointed their fingers. They wanted to gorge on me. I ran.
-Psychedelic
