Oh I wanted to like this comedy so much more than I did (which was hardly at all to be honest!) It has Karen Gillian and Pedro Pascal and is all about shooting a movie, during COVID times no less. Plus actors making fun of themselves… I was so hopeful.
And really in two hours I think I laughed maybe four times total and 3 of the four was with Pedro’s character and he wasn’t in it nearly enough. The other time was a celebrity cameo at the end 🙂
Though I did like the multiple COVID test shots that alternated between shoving that stick painfully far up people’s noses or barely touching them and then the revelation at the end he never had any idea what to do with the samples so never even sent them anywhere.
I think the problem with this though (besides it not being funny) was the focus.
I’m not sure how much of this was improvised but I’d guess a lot. Mostly because it had that awkward vibe where it felt like Judd Apatow was just turning on the camera and saying, ‘Go’ and must of the actors didn’t really know what to do with that.
It felt like there was no real focus and there were way, way too many characters. Honestly if I started cutting I’d probably start with Leslie Mann and Iris Apatow’s characters and we all know that’s not going to happen.
***And just a personal aside I’ve never been one to get weirded out by sex scenes even with real life couples but for some reason a director shooting their spouse/significant other in a sex scene kind of does weird me out honestly.
The producer guy could have gone and just had Fred Armisen’s director character take over as liaison to Kate McKinnon’s studio chief who, while I love her, also could have been cut down in appearances and sweet Jesus why the weird Beck concert??? Why? Why? Why?
Honestly I’d just have kept it to:
Duchovny’s character who can still play the obnoxious actor trying to rewrite the script clashing with the director. Instead of Mann and Apatow have Maria Bakalova play the newcomer actress in Cliff Beasts and keep the rest of her back and forth with Pedro because that was the good part. Keep Guz Khan’s part mostly the same and get rid of both “relationship” subplots with Gillan’s character but keep the friction they hinted at in the beginning with the rest of the cast (of Cliff Beasts) and make Keegan-Michael Key the documentary director instead of yet another actor.
I don’t know I think I might have thought about this more than they did 🙂 But I’m still salty about the fact that in a weekend with films from Karen Gillan, Matt Smith (Morbius) and Pedro Pascal the one I liked best wound up being freaking Moonshot okay? No more April 1st releases from now on!
Recommend: Sadly no.