Duck Soup

Duck Soup is a prime example of a pure comedy, in every sense of the word. It has one goal, and one goal only - to make people laugh. It has no aspirations of looking to be anything more than what it is, and has the most fun it could possibly have presenting the audience with the immense amounts of ridiculous situations it sets up.

There is a very loose plot to the film. It opens with the appointment of Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) as leader of the bankrupt country of Freedonia. Soon after, we learn how the neighboring country of Sylvania looks to take over Freedonia. The rest of the film consists of Firefly and the Sylvanian ambassador Trentino (played devilishly by Louis Calhern) trying to get rid of each other by any means necessary, including trickery, deceit, and violence, all leading to a madcap, insane finale.

The plot takes a backseat to a lot of gags that incorporate the sense of humor that embodies each of the Marx Brothers’ distinct personalities, a handful of which are non-sequiturs. Normally, when comedies tend to let their jokes lead the film, they end up only working to a certain degree - or not at all, as they might give in to conventional plot themes that make the film feel contrived and ruin the balance of the film. I mean, who hasn’t seen their share of movies where they find themselves laughing at some hilarious one-liner a character makes one moment, and then another moment later groaning when the film decides to move the plot along?

However, Duck Soup is much smarter than that. It knows exactly how to weave the plot in between the jokes, just enough to let the audience know exactly what they need to know before moving on to a new gag. Also, it’s the actions of each Marx Brother in certain gags that allows for the plot to move forward, mainly those of Groucho’s Firefly. His great wit and comedic timing suggest he is a somewhat intelligent man, although he is also stubborn, and contains a faulty enough mindset that causes him to exaggerate a situation, causing for many antagonistic interactions with Trentino.

Outside of Groucho’s one-liners, the majority of the jokes stem from a great deal of slapstick humor that the Marxes are known for. Chico and Harpo are responsible for a majority of the physical gags, although Groucho takes part in a great deal of these sequences, as well. For most comedians to pull off a visual gag or any sort of physical humor, they have to worry about how they go about the slapstick. Anyone can just walk into a wall or slip on a banana peel, but only a select few can make the joke funny, as it’s the way they hit into that wall or slip on that banana peel that determines if the joke worked or not. For some, it’s difficult. However, the Marxes pull off each and every visual gag with ease, immensely exaggerating their body language and constantly expanding jokes that could have been a few seconds long into a few minutes long, although never to the point where the joke is played out.

Duck Soup stands today as a comedy classic. It allows for us to look back at a time where most comedies simply had to make the audience laugh in order to fully work. It’s a stark contrast to the majority of today’s greatly revered comedies, which could generally also be classified more as dramedies, dark comedies, or any other genre mix. It should be essential viewing for anyone who has even a remote liking for the genre, as - almost eighty years after it was first released - it still holds up as truly a sight to behold.

5/5

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

The third entry in the Transformers series is a cluttered, noisy, ugly mess that brings the series to its lowest point - a point thought impossible to achieve after the disaster that was its immediate predecessor. It proves to be an extremely miserable experience, being an hour too long with a plot too complicated for its own good and characters that, even for the type of movie it looks to be, are too thinly written.

The movie sees the return of its main character, Sam Whitwicky, portrayed at his whiniest by Shia Lebeouf, as he once again aids the Autobots in some sort of war against the Decepticons. Honestly, that’s the most I’m able to describe the plot because I had no clue what was exactly going on for the film’s entirety. Every major detail is presented in such an incoherent manner, with characters rambling endlessly at a pace so rapid that my head was left spinning after just a half-hour into the film. It also didn’t help that the film would periodically stop for inane subplots such as Sam’s mother - for some reason - trying to promote a self-help book to him.

That brings me to the film’s next biggest problem. This is a two-and-a-half-hour-long film, but it really should have been anywhere between ninety to one-hundred minutes. For a simple summer blockbuster, everything should have been presented in much simpler terms and without unnecessary subplots. Why do we need to hear all this complicated backstory that’s being thrown in our faces when all we really want to see is a simple story about two groups of robots in battle? If the simple route was taken, I could guarantee at least forty-five minutes or so would have been cut from the film. And for the better, I might add. I mean, how long could one possibly drag out the notion of a bunch of robots fighting each other?

Speaking of the fight scenes, the film even fails to make these appealing, and it’s the action that’s supposed to be the center-point of the film. Each action scene is presented as loud as it could possibly be, with non-stop explosions and screaming being the driving forces behind these sequences. The editing causes these scenes to jump all over the place, so there is never even really a clear focus as to where all the loud noises and screaming are distinctly coming from. This proves to be especially mind-numbing in the last act of the film, which is essentially all the previous action sequences in the film presented non-stop for forty-five minutes to an even greater degree. About five minutes into this point of the film, you’re already begging for it to end.

The film also includes a huge supporting cast of actors who are clearly all too talented to be wasting their time with this sort of nonsense. However, I guess with the way the economy is going at this point, desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose. The cast includes supporting roles or cameos from the likes of John Turturro, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, Alan Tudyk, and Patrick Dempsey. The majority of these roles are meant as comic relief, although they all fail miserably at providing one single laugh. Instead, they all play obnoxious versions of characters they have previously played, all desperately shouting out one “comical” line after another. For example, take John Malkovich’s Osbourne Cox character from Burn After Reading. Now, take out all the profanity, make him shout even louder than he already did, and then just make sure every single word he says is not funny. And that’s essentially the character Malkovich portrays in this disaster-piece. It shames me to see such talented actors go to waste, but like I said, there are just times when some people need a paycheck, I suppose.

Watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon proves to be one of the most miserable experiences I have ever had watching a movie. It does everything it could possibly do wrong to the greatest degree it could possibly do it. There was not one single bright spot I could think of as I look back on the film. And by that, I mean, there actually were about three or four moments where I remember briefly smiling, but there were so many explosions, screaming, and obnoxious performances that immediately followed that it caused me to forget what I was smiling about. It actually was so obnoxious that just thinking about it now gives me a headache, so I’m going to stop before I do any serious damage to my brain.

0.5/5

Super

Typically in any film, to get cheap entertainment at the expense of the characters is usually considered a big strike against the entire film itself. Usually the film is considered “mean,” and that it has no real compassion for its characters, causing most to turn away from the film.

Super, however, is an exception to this case. In fact, the majority of the film’s laughs come from the fact that its central character, Frank D’Arbo, is one of the most pathetic people on the face of this Earth. Here is a man who is society’s standard definition of a loser. Yet we find ourselves laughing at everything he does. Every move that he makes and everything he says we find of utmost interest. I mean, it’s hard not to find interesting a man who compares with such great conviction butting in line to acts such as dealing drugs and molesting little children.

The film has gained great comparisons to the similarly themed - and equally demented - Kick-Ass, released only a year earlier. However, while both films contain similar premises, they wildly differ in how they go about themselves. While Kick-Ass is an action film with immense amounts of violence that’s supported by its many three-dimensional characters, Super is a straight-up character study with its horrific violence used to support what kind of characters we are dealing with.

Frank leads such a mundane and depressing life that he is the type of man who takes such pride in even his smallest of accomplishments. He states right in the opening of the film how he has had only two good memories in his life, and those are marrying his wife and helping the cops stop a purse snatcher. He commemorates both events by hand-drawing them in crayon and hanging them up on his wall. The fact that he dresses up as his superhero alter ego, The Crimson Bolt, shows what great lengths he’ll go to defend even the smallest of his miniscule convictions. Not only does he go around beating up on criminals, but also those whose less-than-favorable actions are considered major injustices in his eyes (i.e. line-cutting).

Frank is played with such perfection by Rainn Wilson, known to those who keep up with their television shows for playing another big loser on The Office, Dwight Schrute. Frank is just like Dwight in the sense that they are both pathetic in their viewpoints and how they will go to great lengths to defend them, so I could imagine the role being a very easy fit for Wilson. However, Frank is Dwight’s darker side, without all the goofiness to him. He is the type of man who can come to terms with how much of a sad-sack he really is. With each step that Frank takes, with each act that he commits carrying as much pride as he possibly can, you could see such an underlying sadness to him. Yet it’s not the kind of sadness that guilts you into feeling any sympathy for the guy, like most melodramas tend to do. You love to see him defending his convictions and accomplishments so when you catch that sadness about him as he goes about his actions, you genuinely feel bad for him.

As much as there is a sadness about the lead character, though, this does not make Super all that depressing of a film. In fact, there is an equal amount, if not greater amount, of fun to be had from the film. This mostly stems from Wilson’s co-star in all his crime-fighting adventures, Libby, played fantastically by Ellen Page. Libby is the female equivalent of the characters that Wilson is best known for playing. She’s equally as pathetic, a comic book fangirl with grand delusions that she and Frank are indestructible forces that can easily take down crime and whoever else they wish to take down. She balances out Frank’s sadness, though, as she doesn’t care that she doesn’t do a whole lot with herself, and just has fun with the fact that she’s doing something that she thinks is right. The passion she carries as she goes around assisting Frank makes her the highlight of the film.

Wilson and Page are joined by a great supporting cast, including Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion, and Kevin Bacon. All offer their fair share of solid moments in the film. This especially holds true to Bacon, who I guess has recently found a knack for antagonist roles, having also recently played the antagonist in X-Men: First Class. He should keep it up, as he seems to fit into these roles very naturally. He’s the type of guy who’s able to have fun with the fact that he’s such a bad guy, although never becoming too over-the-top. He plays with the villain, Jock, so very suave yet with such an obvious more conniving nature about himself that it makes him so much fun to watch every time he’s on screen.

If there’s one thing that might turn people away from Super, it’s the violence. There is a mass amount of violent acts committed in the film, from people being hit over the head with a wrench to a man being run over by a car. It constantly escalates, all leading to a very explosive final act. A lot of it is portrayed very graphically, possibly making it uncomfortable for some. However, there are two main reasons why the violence works. For one thing, as previously stated, the violence supports the types of characters we are dealing with. Their convictions are small-scale, yet hold them very strongly, and will go to great lengths to defend them. To not have as much violence as there was would completely downplay them. Secondly, the film is also meant to be fun, so for those who are big action film fans, the violence will be something to enjoy.

4.5/5