The brainlessness of the blockbuster film was on full display this past weekend, with both major studio releases exhibiting the type of startlingly insipid and extravagantly unselfconscious filmmaking we’ve come to associate with the summer movie season. Not only did the Memorial Day holiday see the release of the sixth installment in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise, it also saw the opening of the third, and hopefully final, part of the “The Hangover” series. If for some reason you needed more proof that a film doesn’t have to be smart to bring in the millions, this was it.
Let’s start with the significantly better of the two films, “Fast & Furious 6.” This won’t shock anyone, but the film is dumb and fun. It’s a movie about car thieves tasked with stopping a terrorist, for god’s sake. Granted, plot means little to these movies. Instead the film provides a venue for Vin Diesel, Duane “The Rock” Johnson, Paul Walker, and everyone else to crack lame jokes, make serious faces, and talk about the importance of family. Oh yeah, and to drive cars at incredibly high speeds and occasionally crash them into things or launch them off ramps created by the debris of previously mentioned collisions. It’s ridiculous and over the top and so little of it makes sense, but it all happens so fast and is edited so smoothly that you don’t have time to think about anything other than the fact that it’s pretty cool to see someone jump out of a speeding muscle car into an equally fast-moving vehicle.
I clearly wasn’t alone in feeling this way about the film, as the Justin Lin-directed picture made $120 million over the long weekend. (By the way, kudos to Lin, who’s directed four of these now. There are only so many ways to make people driving cars fast look interesting, and he’s really good at it.) During the screening that I caught with a friend on Saturday night, the audience was raucous — guffawing, cheering, oohing and aahing throughout the film’s two-plus hour runtime. We were all having such a good time that no one seemed to care about the woman sitting next to my friend who spent the entire movie checking Instagram, messaging people on Facebook, and, at one point, having a minutes-long phone conversation. There were so many engines revving, gunshots ringing out, and things exploding that she was practically drowned out. And anyway, it’s not like she was going to distract us from any important plot developments.
“The Hangover Part III,” on the other hand, was anything but enjoyable. It was just as inane and plot hole-filled as “Fast 6,” but there was something cynical and sordid about the third part of Todd Phillips’s “Hangover” trilogy. The film reunites the stars of the previous two films — Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis — for another depraved, “wait, how did we get ourselves into this mess” adventure. Except this time around, things aren’t all that debaucherous, or funny – a real issue for the summer’s main comedy release. There are a million reasons to hate a “Hangover” movie — misogyny, homophobia, excessively vulgarity, to name three — but this one was just boring. There’s a forlornness that hangs over everything, and maybe that’s the point. Like the tail end of an actual hangover, everyone involved is ready for it to be over — but that doesn’t make for a particularly entertaining or amusing film.
There were plenty of empty seats at the quiet screening I went to, which was clearly the case across the country — the film has brought in a disappointing $63.8 million since opening last Wednesday. Sixty-plus million dollars isn’t that bad of opening, but remember that this was a holiday weekend and the previous film in the series made $70 million more over the same timeframe in 2011. Hopefully, the movie’s disappointing opening won’t tempt the studio to try to wring more juice from the franchise.
This weekend made me yearn for a fresher blockbuster. So far this summer’s offerings have all been sequels or the adaptation of a classic American novel — well-worn, lucrative paths that studios are reluctant to depart from. But as a viewer, it’s nice to not know exactly what’s going to happen in a film. I’m almost looking forward to next week’s big release, M. Night Shyamalan’s Will and Jaden Smith-starring sci-fi film “After Earth,” because at least it’s somewhat original.
On second thought, that film still looks terrible.
“Fast & Furious 6”
Director: Justin Lin
Writer: Chris Morgan
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster
Opening Weekend Gross: $122.2 million
“The Hangover Part III”
Director: Todd Phillips
Writers: Todd Phillips and Craig Mazin
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, John Goodman
Opening Weekend Gross: $63.8 million