JHW3

This movie is very bizarre. It is sort of a so-called "black comedy" in the same way "King of Comedy" and "U-turn" were. The acting is excellent; the story is okay. There are several very violent scenes, particularly one horrifically violent scene near the beginning of the movie that kind of sickened me and ruined the mood of the rest of the movie for me, especially since I didn't expect it and thought the movie was going to be "light fluff." The movie made me smile at times, but it really never made me laugh. I heard some people in the audience make statements near the end of the movie such as, "This is stupid" and "Oh, come on." Children should not be brought to this movie, as a few nitwits did where I was. Besides the bloody violence and four-letter words, the movie depicts people and life as generally miserable; in fact, rather than cheering me up, which is why I went to see the movie in the first place, the movie actually left me feeling kind of depressed.

I went to see this movie because I was bored and had nothing to do this particular Saturday night and I had either seen everything else and/or wasn't interested in much of what was playing. I figured that this movie would be the usual asinine garbage that is made for today's college and teenage crowds, but I like Greg Kinnear and thought I'd give the movie a look. I expected some ridiculous, sniveling, moronic geek of a character whom everyone would pick on and he would go out of his way to kiss up to the members of the in-crowd only to be made to look even more foolish. This was not the case, at all. The character is played straight. The so-called "loser" in the movie is not played as I thought that he would be played; he was really a winner, which made this movie surprisingly pleasant and entertaining. The jerks in the "in crowd" were the true losers in this movie, as they usually are in real life. It is only in their eyes that people with values are "losers." The acting in this movie was excellent. All of the characters were portrayed in a believable manner. You either truly liked them or despised them, and you could really root for the good guy (the "loser"), not because you felt sorry for him but because he really deserved to win.

The Farrelly brothers have finally done it--they have managed to make a thoroughly boring and thoroughly disgusting movie. While Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin, and There's Something About Mary were disgusting, they were hilariously disgusting. This movie is just plain unfunny disgusting. There seems to be a general fixation in this movie on the anus and the use of the anus as a bodily opening into which animate and inanimate objects are rammed. I didn't like the story. I didn't like the anal humor. I didn't like the characters (and, other than Jim Carrey, I don't know whether I even liked most of the actors who played the characters). I didn't like the narration (reminded me of The Big Lebowski, another truly bad movie). And I didn't like the soundtrack, except for maybe one song. I should have listened to Rita Sever of NBC's Friday Night who rated the movie "only if you're desperate [to see a movie]". She's usually right on the money with her reviews, but I like Jim Carrey and most of his movies, so I thought I'd check it out. All in all, this movie was a disappointing waste of time and $8.50. It wouldn't even be worth seeing for $1.95 at the local second-run movie house.