Quickies

I’m going to be offline for a few days so here are a couple of very quick reviews.

THE OTHER GUYS

I’ve come to the conclusion that I like Will Ferrell a lot more than I often like his films. Anchorman is without doubt his best, I have a soft spot for Blades Of Glory, but Talladega Nights, Semi Pro, Step Brothers… they all have funny stuff in them, usually Ferrell is the best thing in them, but the films as a whole are extremely scattershot, often too long and ultimately fall short to varying degrees. And to that list we can now add The Other Guys. What was surprising was how the film ended up being stolen from underneath Will Ferrell’s nose by Michael Keaton who is hilarious as the clichéd “Police Captain” who also happens to work at a bed and mattress superstore. Some very funny moments, definitely enough to make it worth a watch, but, again, scattershot, way too long and in the end probably insufficient.

5.5/10

DEVIL

When the concept is 6 people are trapped in a lift and one of them is the Devil, you really can’t complain about the resulting film. If, in a weird way, it had embraced its own inherent silliness a bit more it may have been quite good. But coming from the mind of M Night Shyamalan there is nothing throwaway or silly here. This is THE DEVIL people!!! And he’s in a lift!!! Thing is, it’s running time is 76 minutes and for that it’s definitely getting extra points. It’s also verging on the enjoyable in a bad way. It doesn’t quite get there, for the most part it’s just bad, and if anyone is fooled by the reveal of which of the elevator’s occupants the Devil ends up being, you should never be allowed inside another cinema ever again.

4.5/10

That’s it for now folks.