Merrick here...
Liquorishspliz and The Beef sent in this look from an early screening of THE ROCKER, which opens early August.
THE ROCKER is directed by Peter Cattaneo (THE FULL MONTY) and is written by Maya Forbes (THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW) and Wallace Wolodarsky (THE SIMPSONS). Seems like this pedigree would make for a reasonably entertaining film. Or, maybe not?
You can find THE ROCKER's official site HERE, or follow Wilson's drumstick to see the film's trailer in all kinds of Glorious QuickTime.
First up: Liquorishspliz...
A few hours ago I caught a sneak peak screening of the Rainn Wilson comedy 'The Rocker'. I'm not sure if you have received any reviews for it yet, but I thought I'd go ahead and send in my two cents.
Alright so first off, the movie is set to come out in a month, so what I saw is, I'm assuming pretty much what will be seen when it opens in a wide release. I'll start off by saying and just getting this out of the way, what I saw, was not that good at all. Now I like Rainn Wilson's Dwight from the NBC's 'the Office', and I would say for any die hard Wilson fans, it is better to catch him as Schrute or maybe just watch his whole five minutes (if that) as Rollo in 'Juno', than to sit through the verrrrrrrry looooonng drawn out 102 minutes of 'The Rocker'. This movie proves, at least for now that WIlson cannot carry a movie by himself and it seems as though he really needs some good writing behind him. When Wilson tries to carry this movie like someone like Will Ferrell might carry a movie, he ends up more along the lines of an Adam Sandler/Rob Schneider kind of "star" of a movie.
There's so many problems with this movie, but I'll try to hit the basics. First off, this movie is a movie of supporting actors (The cast includes Christina Applegate, Fred Armisen, Will Arnett, Jane Lynch, Emma Stone, Demetri Martin, Jason Sudeikis, Jeff Garlin and the annoyingly pop Teddy Geiger) who have never given their time to shine, when Wilson is given his chance he falls in a steaming pile of shit and brings us along with him. Sure we get a few laughs from this cast, but more than often it consists of head shaking and mere chuckles of pity. I'm pretty sure that it is comedian Demetri Martin that plays an over the top music video filmmaker, who steals the one scene he's in and turns out to be probably the funniest character in this movie. The lovely young Emma Stone of 'Superbad' popularity is nice to look at and Applegate continues to age quite nicely but I don't know what else you can really salvage from the cast, who just brings mediocre acting to this sub-par comedy. Also Josh Gad, who plays WIlson's nephew, Matt in the movie, seems to be really really trying to hard to act, but ohh not so much, for it seems as though the role of Matt, was written specifically for Jonah Hill and instead they plugged this other non funny guy (Gad) in, to take his place. Or it could be that Gad just does a really bad Hill impression, which wouldn't be surprising.
Second. I have not seen or heard Teddy Geiger before this movie, but understand that he is a singer who has tried to do some acting as well. This movie, while trying to act as a starring vehicle for Wilson, ends up being a very drawn out Geiger music video. Geiger doesn't really bring anything fresh or amazing as far as acting or singing, both are teen pop candy coated MTV glossed and just kind of like the rest of the film, kind of float along. Teddy Geiger will probably work well for the blossoming preteens, but for a more mature audience who came to see Wilson, well you just kind of want to beat Geiger with his own guitar after a good while. I will say this though, there are moments where you kind of like him, but it doesn't really make up for the mediocrity of his performance and of the movie.
As far as the filmmakers go, there wasn't anything stand out about the directing, nor the script. The story maybe would have made a nice skit and could have possibly made a nice feature, had someone else written the thing. The writers seem to have tried to go in the direction of an Apatow comedy, while dropping references quickly and subtlety, but the references either aren't very good, just aren't that funny or whats usually the case, the delivery is pretty god awful.
So all in all the film is pretty much not funny, underwhelming and not worth spending money to go see it in the theaters. I remember hearing people come out of the movie saying:
"The funniest thing about that movie, is how not funny it is."
Thanks,
If you use this call me liquorishspliz
Yeouch.
Here's The Beef's take on the film, which isn't much more positive.
This might be a funny movie. I don't really know because the group of guys behind me seemed to think that the sheer presence of Rainn Wilson's face, and other body parts, on the screen was so hysterical that they single-handedly drowned out whatever jokes the movie had with some crazily loud laughs.
That being said, the few times they did allow me to hear a verbal joke to laugh at I might have preferred those group of guys just kept on laughing, because after a while that became more entertaining to listen to than watching the film.
The year is 1986, and Rainn Wilson (in a Jack Black role written for Will Ferrell) is "Fish", the talented and energetic young rock drummer of the up-and-coming hair band Vesuvius. The band has concluded a killer show in Cleveland and is offered a record deal and an oppurtunity to open for Whitesnake on the condition that they ditch Fish for the nephew of the owner of the label.
Fish finds out he's been stabbed in the back and runs after the band's tour van as they attempt to get away in a scene that was much more entertaining in CREEPSHOW 2. The band gets away, and leaves Fish behind to find a new way to rock stardom.
Jump 20 years later, Vesuvius is a legendary rock band and Fish lives bitterly getting fired from standard job to standard job. Always around to offer as small of a helping hand as possible is his sister (Jane Lynch) and her family. Fish's teenage nephew (Josh Gad in the performance to make this film worthy to sit through) is a keyboard player in a high school rock band called A.D.D. whose regular drummer just got suspended from school and so they're in desperate need of a replacement to play with them temporarily for their high school prom gig.
Initially reluctant to pick up the sticks again Fish eventually concedes to play and reignites his thirst for fame and the rock n' roll lifestyle by playing with a group of kids about 25 years younger than he.
Given his first real oppurtunity to shine in a leading role Rainn Wilson does the best he can with a character that isn't easy to enjoy watching if you've seen at least one or two popular comedies of the last 5 years. It's not that there isn't any funny material, it's that it's the exact same material we've seen Will Ferrell make a career out of.
Everything in the Ferrell repertoire to milk a laugh is right here. Flaunting your unattractive figure, check. Hyperactive ego, check. Insane antics after drinking too much, check. Soaking everyone in your sweat and puking into your hand...well, that's new but it sounds Ferrellesque. And if it isn't Ferrell's material, then it's Jack Black's screen personality on display.
It's not the easiest thing to combine what makes Jack Black's characters endearing with what makes Will Ferrell's characters funny. We can usually buy into Will Ferrell's characters because his ego and actions are validated by the other characters in the film. Everyone sees Ron Burgundy as the man, and that's part of what makes the character entertaining to watch.
On the flipside of that Jack Black's Dewey character from SCHOOL OF ROCK is not the man, but deep down his aspirations are sincere and that drives our willingness to root for him when he's doing some immature things. All he really wants to do at the core is make great rock n' roll music. Damn the contracts and the fame, he just wants to blow the load of a large crowd rocking the microphone and making the guitar squeel.
Fish wants to make up for lost time living the rock n' roll lifestyle of women, alcohol, and hotel room destruction. He could almost care less about the music as long as it allows him to actively bang the drums. It doesn't remain this way, his age won't allow it to, but by the time he has his moment of realization it's too little too late and all of the opportunity for a more entertaining film had already passed by.
That opportunity lay in the potential of what could have been if the film shifted its focus away from Fish and onto his young band members, specifically Fish's nephew Matt. There were plenty of opportunities to flesh out Matt's character a little more, such as his struggle with girls and a growing affection with the band's first die-hard fan. Those two things are brought up and resolved within 2 minutes, but they were 2 minutes more entertaining than the half-hour devoted to watching Rainn Wilson sweat and show off his unspectacular physique.
Out of all of the actors in the film, Josh Gad (Matt) came through as the person most audience members will want to keep an eye on down the road, much in the same way Jonah Hill seemed like one to watch after his brief screen time in 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, and then later on in ACCEPTED.
The rest of the film is nothing more than a showcase of comic actors whose best work remains on the small screen, I guess Rainn Wilson included. Will Arnett, Jeff Garlin, Christina Applegate, and a collection of 30 ROCK and SNL alums have a varying degree of screentime with none of them being able to elicit any more than a halfway smile.
If you think a Will Ferrell comedy can be funny without Will Ferrell then this movie is probably for you. If you've already grown tired of the Will Ferrell formula regardless of who's playing Will Ferrell then steer clear, because this one is by the books.
Thanks,
The Beef
