Trainwreck

There are some makers who although talented in a specific way, move into a space that simply shows their talent to be little. Alexander Payne for example could be making stylized comedies with no problem, but as soon as he moves into elegy and meaning, it all becomes a sophomoric play. We've known Malick in that field and Payne is like a film school grad next to him.

So it would seem Apatow has an effervescent personality, at least enough to want to move out from his comfort zone. He could be cranking penis joke comedies till the cows come home but wants to move into more somber reflection about the pains of life. He has tried this a few times by now.

Here he tries a few switches. A movie about the usual slob who never grew out of adolescence but she's a girl. Men are almost entirely immature or idiots, and for some reason I can't begin to fathom, half of them gay, that is except for the knight in white armor who patiently helps her grow out of herself. He puts them in that New York movie romance where a couple are on and off again and might even think he's turning Woody Allen upside down. Indicative; the familiar romantic scene on a bench looking over at Brooklyn Bridge ends with a blowjob.

None of it sticks after a point and it's off-putting to think he might be thinking of any of this as transgressive. So he has moved out from the familiar safety of what he can do well, into a space that shows him to have trivial insights and odd hangups, from primarily a comedy about life where laughter sanctifies reductions, to primarily a drama about life where muttering dialogue and stereotypes rattle in the nothingness of not having anything to impart. He moves, even if ever so slightly, into territory that Woody, Bergman, and Altman have occupied. But in this space he's shown to be a dunderhead.

Schumer genuinely makes me laugh. I dig her show. But it turns out creating sustained, feature-length comedy is a different bag altogether.

I appreciate Schumer/Apatow's attempts at grounded, human comedy. This doesn't have to be as broad as say, "Spy", which was way more funny and, I think, thematically much smarter. But if you're going for grounded comedy then the characters have to be... well, interesting. And every single character in this is a one-dimensional shell. Each one has their role to play in the script and are nothing beyond that. The performances are strong, and the actors work hard to humanize their characters, but no person in this film is expansive or complex or terribly engaging or remotely unpredictable in any way. In fact, absolutely nothing is unpredictable in this film. So, for me, it comes off as not broad enough to be funny, and not genuine enough to be grounded.

Combine this overwhelming predictability, flat characterization and the sports-stunt casting with Apatow's habit for long running times, and an uninspired, robot-written third act, and you get a film that's more tedious than fun.

But Schumer herself is funny. And more than that, she's important. She's at her best when she's exploding the precious notion of female body imagery in joke after joke about bloody tampons and promiscuity. But the film lacks the courage of its star, which is a complicated criticism, since she actually wrote it.

There was the potential to make something outrageous and beautiful here. That potential was pretty much blown.

This was unoriginal and only saved by the characters that are actually funny people in real life. Written by Amy Schumer, she manages to have the worst character and performance in the film. And herein lies the ultimate irony: the worst performance in this film was also nominated for a golden globe. A collection of clichés and stolen one liners from Sex and the City... a really poor effort that is only worth watching for Bill Hader's performance and the supporting cast. John Cena's and Lebron's performances might be a sort of surprise but anyone who had watched interviews in laid back settings knew they had potential. Adding brilliant comedians to the cast who can ad lib and improvise is a smart move but doesn't add value to Schumer's work. I have been noticing in the last few years an effort to hype Amy and turn her into a sort of new Tina Fey or Amy Poehler, but nominating this disaster for golden globes is a disgrace and steals credibility to the awards.

Firstly, I am not a fan of Schumer but the supporting cast, cameos and Judd Apatow's typical treatment of a RomCom makes this a reasonable outing and worthwhile.

Bill Hader was underrated as usual and Tilda Swinton played an atypical role for her which I found amusing due to this fact. Although I enjoyed this film despite being a little cliche, but I don't think I will ever make an effort to see "I Feel Pretty".

Trainwreck is a romantic comedy directed by Judd Apatow and starring Amy Schumer and Bill Hader, and this film comes in very strong with the comedy. The romance side of the film kicks in about 30 minutes in, so for the first act of the film it really has some pretty damn good laughs. There was a pretty steady flow of jokes and comedy gags throughout the film and you have to give most of that credit to Amy Schumer who was incredibly hilarious in this. She is one of the funniest people out there today and she proves it in this film with perfect comedic timing. Her style of comedy is so blunt and fairly subtle at some moments and that makes it very unpredictable so she can hit you with great jokes left right and centre and you never see it coming.

Now even though she does manage to pull it off the best, Bill Hader and the supporting cast are also hilarious and provided a lot more laughs than i had initially expected. Bill Hader of course is hilarious and he works in this film really well but he was slightly overshadowed by Amy at some moments in the film, and the large supporting cast also took away from him a little. But man were the supporting cast hilarious, i have to give credit to LeBron James because that guy is hilarious. He was one of the biggest surprises of the film, almost every scene he was in i couldn't stop laughing, it looks like Apatow and Schumer managed to teach him a few things in terms of comedy.

As well as being jam packed with great hilarious moments this movie really had a basic but also pretty good rom-com story thrown in there. And it worked well, they didn't just force any random plot in there to add to the run-time. For the first two acts they did a great job at blending those comedic scenes and romantic more plot driven scenes well so they could switch between the two vary naturally. But the third act for me didn't work as much. The romantic side began to take charge and the comedy took a back seat. There were still some pretty funny scenes in the third act but it felt uneven tonally and a little jumpy. There was a pretty sad moment at one point then it tries to crack a few jokes immediately after then going back to the romantic stuff and it didn;t work for me as well as the rest of the film. I don't think it was an issue of being too long just needed a little more refining towards the end. But otherwise it was a great funny movie.

Amy Schumer's comedy may not be for everyone so those who are not a fan of her 'Inside Amy Schumer' skits probably won't like this as much but as far as a romantic comedy goes, this one was actually very good and had quite a bit in there for everyone. - 7.1

ALSO, on last thing, i just checked the list of cast and was surprised beyond belief when i found out that Tilda bloody Swinton was in this film. Like WTF? she was completely unrecognisable and hilarious, so see if you can pick her out when you see the film.