Weekend Movie Guide: Go See Tower Heist!

Opening Everywhere: Tower Heist, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

Opening Somewhere: The Son of No One

FilmDrunk Suggests: Are you kidding? TOWER HEIST! Did you read Vince’s review earlier? It’s the most unintentionally hilarious comedy since Ishtar. And of course we love Brett Ratner here. He’s the best tiny-donged crustacean jerker ever. Go see Tower Heist now.

Tower Heist

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68% critics *cough, bullsh*t, cough*, 71% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

“This is, of course, Hollywood schlock, directed by shlock-master Brett Ratner (Rush Hour). But it’s also a surprisingly effective social drama. Ratner keeps the action rooted to the here-and-now, offering a recession-times revenge fantasy where the motivations never feel fantastical, even if the heist itself does.” – Robert Levin, The Atlantic

“That proves a road way too traveled for Heist, whose finale suggests itself around the opening credits. Murphy’s lines play as conventionally humorous as Alda’s are conventionally loathsome.” – Scott Bowles, USA Today

Eddie Murphy is back in top form, reason alone to see Tower Heist, a highly entertaining and heartfelt action comedy that ought to steal more laughs [GET IT? LOL -Ed.] than any other film this holiday season. Because it doesn’t take itself too seriously or get too wrapped up in a convoluted plot, it’s actually more fun than Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13 added together. […] With its old fashioned sensibilities and comic stunts, this crowd-pleaser is implausible if you stop to think about it—but who wants to think? –Pete Hammond, BoxOfficeMagazine

Armchair Analysis: What I love about the idea of this film is that millionaires are trying to pretend like they know how the disenfranchised minimum wagers feel. That’s why Levin’s little excerpt up there is a load of poopy. Like Brett Ratner really understands what the little people are going through when he wraps a film, has some Mexican guy drive him home in a stretch Hummer limo and then spends 20 minutes ordering hookers from a leather-bound catalog. If you’re a hotshot Hollywood director and you want to make a revenge film set against this economic turmoil? Have the IRS investigate the Kardashians and let them be deported to Armenia.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 69% critics (WHAT?!), 85% audience (*bong rip*)

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

“It’s a 3-D outing that has the good sense to be properly filmed in the format, only to still toss gratuitously inserted items towards the screen: splattering eggs, beer pong balls and the surprisingly effective waft of pot smoke each and every time one of these stoners gets, well, stoned.” – My buddy William Goss, Film.com

“‘Harold & Kumar’ used to have a what-the-hell, multi-culti attitude, mostly because of its easygoing leads, John Cho and Kal Penn. But this film feels a little meaner and indulges in too many lazy racist jokes (gangbanging Hispanics, Asians who all look alike) with the usual excuse of ‘Hey, we’re just being ironic.’” – Stephen Whitty, The Star-Ledger

Armchair Analysis: I get why people like Harold & Kumar movies. I don’t like the movies, but I get it. I know the majority of people just want to see this because Neil Patrick Harris is awesome, and I’m sure at some point I’ll watch this on DVD, as I did with the first two, which were both “Meh, I guess if I was stoned” in their own special ways. I just wish Kal Penn wasn’t such a liar about that whole quitting acting thing.

The Son of No One

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 17% critics, 33% audience (“Aw sh*t son, people be drankin’ haterade!”)

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

“At the same time Mr. Tatum’s performance stands alongside Taylor Lautner’s in “Abduction” as one of the year’s most wooden, expressionless star turns, while Ms. Holmes’s hysterical Kerry veers to the opposite extreme.” – Stephen Holden, New York Times

“Stephen Holden? Holden ma dick, son AWWWWWWWWWW YEAH, C-TATES IN DA MUTHA F*CKING HIZZOUSE! Yo girl, this movie is legit, playboy. Me and Scarface is like, I’MMA YELL AT YOU, BEEYOTCH! Sh*t’s legit, right?” – Channing Tatum, Hardest Twerkin’, Workin’, Lay it Down, Flip it and Reversin’ Man in Show Bizzna$ty

Armchair Analysis: This movie has been called a bomb since it debuted at Sundance and people walked out in the middle of the screening. But come on, people… it’s C-Tates. I just don’t get why people don’t want him to be successful. Sure, he can’t act to save his life, but he’s still better than Justin Long, right?

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