Be Kind to yourself - don't go and see this movie. Bizarrely, the Sunday Times had given it four stars, and needing a laugh, I went along, thinking it sounded good; Jack Black plays a useless mechanic who ruins all the videos in his mate Mos Def's uncle (Danny Glover) store, so they set about making their own 20 minute versions of such titles as Robocop, Ghostbusters, King Kong.
There were a few funny moments when the film moved onto the whacky movie making, but overall, this was pretty dismal. Jack Black didn't do much besides his usual Jack Black performance (come on Jack, throwing up just isn't funny anymore), Mos Def had such poor diction it was actually hard to hear what he was saying, and the movie's overall theme, of community spirit, of revering the past, and pulling together as a team to prevent Danny Glover's Be Kind Rewind video store from being demolished, was lost. The novel appearance of Sigourney Weaver (a nasty enforcer of copyright law) and Mia Farrow (trusted friend of Danny Glover) just about hauled this up from total obscurity; overall, the film plods heavily through its themes, very unremarkably, and ends on a not convincingly uplifting note. The pub was the only salvation to a very sorry experience.
There were a few funny moments when the film moved onto the whacky movie making, but overall, this was pretty dismal. Jack Black didn't do much besides his usual Jack Black performance (come on Jack, throwing up just isn't funny anymore), Mos Def had such poor diction it was actually hard to hear what he was saying, and the movie's overall theme, of community spirit, of revering the past, and pulling together as a team to prevent Danny Glover's Be Kind Rewind video store from being demolished, was lost. The novel appearance of Sigourney Weaver (a nasty enforcer of copyright law) and Mia Farrow (trusted friend of Danny Glover) just about hauled this up from total obscurity; overall, the film plods heavily through its themes, very unremarkably, and ends on a not convincingly uplifting note. The pub was the only salvation to a very sorry experience.