Movie Review - “The Heartbreak Kid”
GRADE: C-
Ben Stiller has been making hit after hit recently, until now. I personally loathed the bloated mess from last Christmas called “A Night At The Museum”. The announcement of a sequel just shows that Stiller will do pretty much anything for a check these days. Although he has worked with the Farrelly Brothers before with “There’s Something About Mary”, this time around they don’t break new ground they just go for the easy poop jokes.
The Heartbreak Kid is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name starring Charles Grodin. Single aging Eddie (Ben Stiller) begins dating the incredibly sexy (Malin Akerman) who he believes may be the woman of his dreams. Upon the urging of his father (Jerry Stiller) and best friend (Rob Corddry), Eddie proposes to her after only six weeks, fearing this may be his last chance at love, marriage, and happiness. However, while on their honeymoon in sunny Mexico, Lila reveals her true beyond-awful nature and Eddie meets Miranda (the gorgeous Michelle Monaghan), the woman he realizes to be his actual soul mate. Eddie must keep his new, increasingly horrid wife at bay as he attempts to woo the girl of his dreams.
I am a huge fan of the Farrelly Brothers, they do sweet, sincere gross out comedies that show the ugly side of life with a charming twist. Most of the Farrelly’s main characters have visible flaws but Stiller’s character just ends up being a jerk in this film. Granted his new wife is insufferable and just plain grating in the movie but after a while watching these two fools create one misunderstanding after another is like watching an episode of “Three’s Company” where everything could be resolved if just one conversation took place.
The last 20 minutes of this movie tried way too hard to shock and to go for the gross out factor. I did laugh during many parts of this film but couldn’t help but feel I had seen this all before. Any movie that uses Carlos Mencia in it has to be bad news, and Mencia has a big part in this film. “The Heartbreak Kid” is not the worst film from the Farrelly’s nor is it one of the worst films of the year. It just lacks the heart and fun of many R rated comedy classics like this years “Superbad”. This is a hard genre to get right, and this time around the Farrelly’s missed the mark.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
their case for making Stiller’s first wife into an annoying monster, etc. was totally un-convincing… it made him look all the more like a lame-o