Game Night

Dir: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

2018

***

I pretty much hated everything about John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s 2015 Vacation remake but I was happy to overlook it thanks to their great work on the Spider-Man: Homecoming screenplay and because I liked Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. The film was written by Mark Perez, so again I decided to ignore the fact that he’d written Herbie: Fully Loaded and remembered that he was also responsible for 2006’s Accepted. Unfortunately Game Night isn’t as good as the trailer had me believe, indeed – all the good bits are in said trailer. I thought the story was pretty strong, it just didn’t work for me. I’m a big fan of Jason Bateman but the films he stars in have become incredibly samey and predictable. Each character was badly written and unoriginal and I wanted to like it far more than I actually did. I also hated the script. A huge shame then when it balanced the dark humour of the story rather well. It begins with married competitive gamer couple Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams). After years of happy marriage they are trying to have a child, but their attempts are unsuccessful due to Max's stress surrounding his feelings of inadequacy - perticularly when compared to his successful brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler). During Max and Annie's routine weekend game night with their friends Ryan (Billy Magnussen) and married couple Kevin (Lamorne Morris) and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), Brooks shows up Max by arriving in a Corvette Stingray (Max's dream car) and sharing an embarrassing childhood story about Max giving himself oral pleasure with the aid of a bungee cord. Brooks offers to host the next game night at a house he's renting while he's in town. Meanwhile, Max and Annie are trying to keep their game nights secret from their neighbor Gary (Jesse Plemons), an awkward police officer who is divorced from their friend Debbie. When the guests, including Ryan's new date, Sarah (Sharon Horgan) – who is far more intelligent than his previous guests - arrive at Brooks' house the following week, Brooks says he's initiated an interactive role-playing mystery game, promising the winner his Stingray. A man dressed as an FBI agent (an uncredited Jeffrey Wright) bursts into the home and informs them of the narrative of the mystery, only for two masked men to break in and assault him and Brooks. The guests believe the assault is part of the game. After Brooks is dragged out of the house, the couples begin to solve the mystery using the clues left behind by the actor. Using his GPS location, Max and Annie track Brooks down to a seedy bar and, using a pistol left behind by Brooks during the struggle (which they believe to be fake), manage to take the keys to the storage closet, where Brooks is being held. After Annie mistakenly fires the gun and shoots Max in the arm, confirming the weapon is real and that they are in actual danger, the three escape. Brooks admits that he actually makes his living buying and selling illegal items on the black market, in particular a Fabergé egg sought by a man known only as the Bulgarian and owned by a man using the alias Marlon Freeman. With his captors in pursuit, Brooks exits the moving car to guarantee Max and Annie's escape. Eventually, the others learn what they've become involved in, avoiding police because of Brooks' warnings. Trying to determine the identities of the Bulgarian (a surprise performance from Michael C. Hall) and Marlon Freeman (Danny Huston), they show up at Gary's house, under the false pretense of a game night, in order to use his police computer, where Max discovers the address of Marlon Freeman (real name: Donald Anderton). The group leaves Gary's house and arrives at Anderton's address, where he is hosting an underground fight club. As the others search the house, Ryan spots the egg in a wall safe and is caught trying to steal it. The group escapes with the egg, but accidentally break it. They discover the egg is a worthless fake, but end up finding a list of names that was stored inside of it, realizing this was what the Bulgarian wanted. The group finds Brooks and his captors on an under-construction bridge and move in to rescue him. Before the captors are able to kill them, the group is saved by Gary, who is then shot in the chest. Max and Annie try to encourage him to pull through by promising to invite him to every future game night. Gary then reveals that he faked the entire scenario in an attempt to trick them into letting him join game night again. He is, however, unaware about the egg, and they are immediately attacked by the real Bulgarian, who captures Brooks after he swallows the list, revealed to be people in the witness protection program. Max and Annie use Brooks' Corvette to drive to the airport and stop the Bulgarian from taking off with Brooks in his jet. They knock the Bulgarian out, tie him up, and free Brooks. Three months later, Brooks, now under house arrest for his crimes, has managed to sell the list for $3 million. Meanwhile, Annie has finally become pregnant. While the group (including an inept Gary) are continuing their game night, men with guns get ready to storm the building and you can’t help but dread the sequel. I do wonder whether this was a happy film to make. Jason Bateman was originally set to direct the film but John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein would only work on a rewrite of the script if they could also direct. I think I would have preferred a Bateman film in some respects but in all honesty, some of the directional techniques used in the film were absolutely brilliant. I have to say, I did like the chemistry between Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams – theirs actually hampered everyone else’s performances in a way. I also liked the many references to various board games, some of which were more obvious than others. It just got a little too ridiculous for its own good. A far more subtle approach would have worked better in my opinion and if there were only one or two outrageous scenes in the script they would have had far more impact. It is only just a three star film and that is because of the cinematography, the nearly great idea and that excellent one-shot scene.

Vacation

Dir: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

2015

*

I'm not going to say that no film or television series should ever be remade or re-envisioned but I would argue that most should be left alone - particularly the ones people are most fond of. Looking back at the original National Lampoon Vacation films, it's really only the first two that are great, the Christmas vacation was okay but the Las Vegas episode rightfully marked the end of the original series although  original fans might be shocked and rightfully disgusted to learn that a sequel to Christmas vacation exists staring none of the original cast. If I'm going to be brutality honest, the first two films are no masterpiece but they are of their time. I adore them and will happily sit and watch them again and again, but I would totally understand why younger persons wouldn't have much enthusiasm for them. Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo made a fourteen minute short film in 2010 called Hotel Hell Vacation that saw them reprise their roles as Mr and Mrs Griswold but it was made for commercial purposes. It was the final sell-out but still a million times better than this 2015 reworking. Technically Vacation is a direct sequel as it features the original Griswold family and stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo once more, although in cameo performances. The main story follows their son Rusty, played here by Ed Helms. Rusty has been played by a different actor in each film, as has his sister Audrey, so real only Chase and D'Angelo count as far as original characters go. No problem there. The family go on a road trip where everything goes wrong - again, as it should. The real problem with this new version of the classic concept, is that it isn't in the least bit funny. A lot of time, money and effort has gone into many jokes that are either dreadfully predictable, seriously unfunny or just fall totally flat. Not just that, most of the laughs are actually annoying, too inane to even be considered offensive. Gross-out humour has been done to death and its been done better. The script is beyond toleration and it really feels like the film has been written by absolute morons. For example, the Griswold's head off at the beginning of their long road trip in a rented car. I'm not sure why they rented a car instead of driving their own but fine. Rusty explains that the car is all he could get on short notice during the holiday season and continues to show his family round the fictional Albanian SUV called the Tartan Prancer. The car looks like it was designed by Homer Simpson and does many strange things that most cars don't - none of them particularly funny. So a huge part of the budget went on this unfunny fictional car. Someone actually built this car and spent time on making it look vaguely real, only for it to be used in the most unfunny way possible. If you have to invent something that doesn't exist in order to make up jokes about it then I would argue that you're not much of a comedy writer. The fact that the film has two directors should be the first sign that this film isn't up to much.The original films were comedies that families could watch and also relate to, but this version makes no sense and has no place in the modern world. Kids swearing isn't very funny, awkward humour needs a good writer and better performers and Albania isn't a particularly funny country. We've seen it all before, many times, and it wasn't that great then. However, this has got to be one of the worst. The appearance of Chase and D'Angelo towards the end of the film is far from the pleasant surprise either, quite the opposite. D'Angelo is given a few second of screen time and Chase is heart-breakingly unfunny. This film needs to be drowned, burned and buried in concreate.