The Bob's Burgers Movie (2022)

I have heard people say that you can enjoy The Bob’s Burgers Movie without having seen any of the series it stems from and, while that is true, I would have to disagree slightly. I have only seen the first few episodes, so far, but that allowed me to know the essence of the various main characters from the very start of this feature, which in turn helped me to enjoy the movie even more than I am sure I otherwise would have.

Bob (H. Jon Benjamin) is once again in a bit of a pickle, no pun intended. The burger restaurant isn’t doing great, the bank won’t allow a time extension on a loan due to be repaid, and then, to top it all off, a large sinkhole appears right in front of their main entrance. That sinkhole even reveals a body, a murder victim. This spurs the kids - Louise (Kristen Schaal), Tina (Dan Mintz), and Gene (Eugene Mirman) - to investigate, primarily because they want to clear the name of their landlord and avoid losing their home and business. Meanwhile, Linda (John Roberts) just wants to help her husband feel like a burger king once again.

Directed by Loren Bouchard and Bernard Derriman, with a script written by Bouchard and Nora Smith (every one of them having worked on the show, Bouchard’s creation, for many years), this is a transition from TV to film that perfectly opens up the world we are shown, ever so slightly, without losing anything that made the show so popular with its fanbase.

The voice acting is as good as you would expect, the main cast members have been doing this for just over a decade now and they ARE those characters, to the ears of many people anyway. But there are a number of other treats throughout, particularly the roles for Kevin Kline (this reminded me of how much I love his movie work) and Zach Galifianakis, playing brothers entangled in the murder investigation, and Gary Cole as Sergeant Bosch. I won’t list everyone else who makes a cameo appearance, but you can check through the cast list to find a real smorgasbord of comedic treats. 

The visual style is in line with the show, albeit given a slight excuse now and then to go a bit “bigger and better”, and every character gets a main role in the story without it feeling forced or dishonest. This is an object lesson in how to do this kind of thing, with the one minor criticism being the fact that it can’t ever feel truly cinematic. 

You get some songs, you get numerous puns, you get someone attempting to craft a sexy burger outfit, and you get a dysfunctional family all . . . working their buns off to save their business, even if they have to solve a decades-old murder to do it.

Not unmissable, but absolutely recommended to fans of the show and fans of comedy served up with relish.

8/10

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They Came Together (2014)

As it's Galentine's Day, this review can appear here today.

Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd star in this spoof of romantic comedies that manages to have its cake and eat it, thanks to the mix of smart gags, fun performances, and moments of extreme silliness.

Poehler is Molly, a typical rom-com lead. She's a bit of a klutz, runs a little candy store, and is mostly content with her life. Rudd is Joel, also a typical rom-com lead. He's "handsome, but in a nonthreatening way. Vaguely but not overtly Jewish." He also works for CRS, a major company that's just about to potentially put Molly out of business. The course of true love is not destined to be smooth for this couple, and the film shows their ups and downs.

Directed by David Wain, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Showalter, this gets everything right when it comes to emulating the style of the movies being spoofed. New York is a major character, as pointed out a number of times, the protagonists start off by disliking one another, assorted friends are pigeonholed as nothing more than varying viewpoints for the leads to use as sounding boards, there's a montage or two, and the climax involves a bit of a race against the clock, a standard for most rom-coms.

This is all well and good, but the masterstroke comes from the fact that the movie is presented as a tale being told by Molly and Joel while they enjoy a dinner date with two friends, Karen (Ellie Kemper) and Kyle (Bill Hader). This allows for plenty of comments on the unfolding events, and also one or two details that we discover may simply be the result of overactive imaginations. 

Poehler and Rudd are both perfect in their roles, of course, and Hader and Kemper both have fun either pointing out, or sometimes missing, the obvious while being told this particular love story. Jason Mantzoukas and Melanie Lynskey play the two friends who think that they're about to bring two lovely people together to form one lovely couple, Teyonah Parris is the one woman working for Molly who also offers helpful advice, and there are a few great cameos to make you smile. Christopher Meloni is the big boss at CRS, and shows once again how great he is at comedy, Michael Ian Black is a grade-A douchebag (and a lot of fun with it), Cobie Smulders is the girl with Rudd at the very start of the movie, and Ed Helms is someone who may try to win over Poehler's character, despite not really having any chemistry with her. At all.

Not all of the gags hit, which is almost inevitable in a comedy like this, but you're never far away from something that could make you laugh out loud. Fans of those involved will certainly have a good time, and fans of romantic comedies may also find that there's still enough here to keep them amused, even as the conventions and cliches are being mocked at every turn. 

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/They-Came-Together-Christopher-Meloni/dp/B00KVFHBLK/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1415555914&sr=1-2&keywords=they+came+together

Hell Baby (2013)

A horror comedy written by, directed by, and starring Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, Hell Baby is a fairly amusing movie that could have been improved by two things. One, a better cast. Two, some sharper gags.

Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb are the couple who move into a home that has seen a lot of bad stuff, to put it mildly, within its walls. Bibb is quite heavily pregnant, and the parents-to-be hope to fill the place with good vibes and start making a rosy future. Keegan-Michael Key plays a man who keeps popping up to remind them of how unlikely that is, while two priests (Garant and Lennon) start down a trail that may well lead them to the very same house. Well, okay, it's obvious that it will. This isn't a mystery. It's obvious almost from the very beginning that the pregnancy is far from a normal one, which makes it just a matter of time until the priests get there and try to defeat any evil forces in the third act.

With a cast that also includes Riki Londhome and Michael Ian Black, this certainly has enough comic talent in front of the camera to help make the ridiculousness more palatable, but it's just a shame that there weren't a few more well-known names in the mix. The film doesn't actually have too many characters, which is a shame, because an extra cameo or two might have been enough to make this that bit more enjoyable. Bibb and Corddry are fun leads, Garant and Lennon work well together, and Key does well enough with a character that could have easily been far too grating.

But the biggest problem that the movie has is over-indulgence. I laughed quite a few times, but there were just as many occasions that started with me laughing and ended with me just wishing that everything had been wrapped up a bit quicker.

There are some easy jump "scares" here and some good gore, mixing with the easy laughs to result in something that defies the odds to become a surprisingly decent horror comedy at times. Unfortunately, it's all undone by a finale that ditches any semblance of intelligence for an overlong and unfunny riff on pass the parcel.

If you like the people involved then you'll like Hell Baby. It's fun. It's just a shame that Garant and Lennon didn't try a bit harder to tighten everything up and pack a bit more in to each act. And it's a great shame that they didn't seem to put any effort at all into thinking up a decent finale.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Baby-Blu-Ray-Leslie-Bibb/dp/B00EP2SN62/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390658933&sr=8-2&keywords=hell+baby