Don’t Watch This Space – The Watch
THE WATCH
REVIEWED BY CRITIC, FILM BUFF & BEER CONNOISSEUR F.P. BLUCK
Nearly 10 am, I noticed that the painters hadn’t turned up. So I texted them and made a hurried bolt up to Hoyts, specifically to see The Watch because I doubt many people I know would want to.
As noted previously, the previews provide a reasonably reliable guide to the flavour of what is to come. I may have missed one, and that might be critical. We had Bachelorette (like an updated Porky’s with chicks), an Australian “comedy” called Mental about a family where the mother is in a psych ward and something called Taken2 . The last had Liam Neeson and some sobbingly lovely shots of Istanbul. But it also had lots of shooty bits and seemed posited on the right of Americans to shoot people in exotic places. What happens outside the USA, stays outside the USA or something.
If it had been named in the spirit of Snakes on a Plane and Cowboys and Aliens , the feature could be called Aliens in a Costco (although that would have given away the ending) or, more accurately, Unfunny Stuff about Rude Words for Bodily Parts and Functions . Ben Stiller plays a Good Citizen, which is a change from his classic “laid back once and future dopehead”. Vince Vaughn plays a crude person lacking in insight, which is pretty much his range. Jonah Hill is the creepy, angry, fat little guy and, again, is not stretched. Richard Ayoade, who played a weird bloke with a mass of pubic hair on his head in The IT Crowd also sticks to type, and managed to keep his accent for reasons that made even less sense as the thing rolled out its very long 90 minutes or so.
Arrogant, incompetent and dismissive cops with drunken, stroppy, sex-crazed teenagers. Weird, male neighbour who may or may not be trying to hit on the sort of happily married Stiller. Aliens – the closeup ones looked like extras from the Alien movies or maybe Tony Abbott with green goo, though the victims were all male. We all know how it’s going to end, so I won’t bother. Some gross bits, but the shocks were cliches, telegraphed from what seemed an eon before but was probably only another joke about semen or something.
Someone was laughing in Cinema 8 and it wasn’t me (which leaves the old bloke up the back, the bloke who was obviously waiting for his car to be fixed and the two teenagers). It was so bad I had no problem with a 15 minute wait in Medibank Private, where (a) one staff member was acting as concierge, directing people to chairs and asking questions about what they wanted at a volume that made me glad all I needed was to adjust the rebate level, (b) two staff members dealt with people at desks while the concierge swanned around and did very little and (c) one bloke occupied a vast amount of time due to his disbelief that if he joined today, Medibank Private would not cover stuff he had done earlier in the week or the surgery he had been told he would need.
Bring on the aliens, even if they’re not convincing.
Tags: ben stiller , hoyts movies , medicare , the watch , vince vaughn