www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

Make me your Homepage
left corner left corner
China Daily Website

Review: 'Due Date' road trip feels endless

Updated: 2010-11-02 14:39
(Agencies)

Review: 'Due Date' road trip feels endless

Robert Downey Jr. is miserable, stuck on a cross-country drive with a creepy Zach Galifianakis in the comedy "Due Date." And it's easy to imagine how he feels: It's often torturous just sitting through the movie, and we're not the ones trapped in the middle of Texas with the guy.

From the commercials alone, though, it's clear we're probably going to be in trouble here: They cut away early and often to a French bulldog in all his smushy-faced, bat-eared adorableness. When you need to go to the dog for easy, reliable laughs, there's something wrong with your script — and this is coming from a dog person.

That script comes from director Todd Phillips, hot off the success of "The Hangover," and three other writers. But "Due Date" lacks the consistent hilarity and originality of that last-summer hit; it's got some individual laughs here and there but lacks sufficient story or character development to hold the whole endeavor together.

And it's not as if "Due Date" were all that complicated — it shouldn't have been so difficult to get right. It's a simple mismatched-buddy road trip movie, the kind you've seen countless times before. Downey plays Peter Highman, a stylish, uptight architect whose wife (Michelle Monaghan) is about to give birth to their first child. Galifianakis plays Ethan Tremblay, a clueless aspiring actor Peter bumps into, literally, at the airport in Atlanta.

Through a series of massive contrivances — the kind that plague the entire journey — Peter and Ethan are kicked off the plane, placed on the no-fly list and forced to share a rental car all the way back to Los Angeles. This includes a stop for Ethan to pick up some medical marijuana for his "glaucoma," a major car accident, an awkward afternoon with Peter's wife's ex-boyfriend and an unplanned and unwise excursion across the Mexican border at night.

These side trips can be amusing for the casting choices alone, which are often inspired. But they also make you wonder, how could that possibly happen? And: Why would anyone do that? And: Will Ethan ever resemble a real person who exists on this planet? He's more like a cluster of idiosyncrasies — he orders waffles at the Waffle House, even though he's allergic to waffles, for example. He masturbates to fall asleep even though Peter is sitting in the front seat of the car right beside him (cue the cutaway to Ethan's dog doing the same thing). He's simultaneously high-maintenance and socially inappropriate. The comparison has been made between "Due Date" and "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," but it's actually got more "Rain Man" in it: Peter has his perfect life upended by a demanding, overgrown child with a heart of gold (or so we're meant to believe — Ethan's more annoying than anything else).

Galifianakis has made a career out of playing variations on this character: a weird guy who says and does all the wrong things but probably means well deep down. Usually, the shtick works, as it did in "The Hangover" and in Galifianakis' own online talk show "Between Two Ferns." But there's a fine line between making people feel intentionally uncomfortable for the sake of comedy and being just plain unpleasant, and he crosses it this time. You would not want to drive down the street with this guy, much less across the country, which makes "Due Date" feel interminable.

Downey does as much as he can with his underwritten, straight-man role — even as "Due Date" veers from slapstick to feel-good — simply because he's such a smart, clever actor. Even though he's called upon to do some unlikable and even cruel things, he's fascinating to watch through his sheer magnetism, and through a screen presence that always offers the promise of the unexpected.

"Due Date" also goes some places you wouldn't expect. But you might not want to go along for the ride.

"Due Date," a Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated R for language, drug use and sexual content. Running time: 95 minutes. Two stars out of four.

 
 
...
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 亚洲欧美日韩中文字幕在线一区 | 麻豆日韩| 狠狠综合久久久久综合 | 精品欧美亚洲韩国日本久久 | 在线播放性xxx欧美 在线播放亚洲视频 | 女人张开腿让男人捅爽 | 亚洲精品一区专区 | 国产女王s调视频vk 国产女王vk | 夜色精品国产一区二区 | 国产三级三级三级三级 | 久草在线国产 | 欧美日韩一级大片 | 亚洲国产精品看片在线观看 | 国产精品线在线精品国语 | 国产午夜精品免费一二区 | 美国毛片免费一级 | 自拍理论片 | 亚洲成年人免费网站 | 深夜福利视频网站 | 看一级毛片 | 亚洲一区高清 | 综合亚洲精品一区二区三区 | 久久精品视频观看 | 午夜黄色福利视频 | 综合欧美日韩一区二区三区 | 中文字幕二区三区 | 久草在线视频免费资源观看 | 欧美日韩一区二区在线视频 | 美国毛片免费一级 | 国内自拍视频在线播放 | 久久经典免费视频 | 最新国产美女一区二区三区 | 久久久亚洲精品国产 | 国产高清成人mv在线观看 | 欧美日韩在线国产 | 怡红院亚洲怡红院首页 | 美女成人网 | 97在线观看免费视频 | 亚洲精品日本 | 日韩美女爱爱 | 黄色毛片一级 |