Wild
Hogs
implies this movie is funny, exciting and hilarious.
Now that I have seen it, a more appropriate
title would have been Wild Bores.
It
really is a highway to hell for all involved.
John Travolta
stars as Woody – a Cincinnati
guy who seems to
have it all, but lost it all when his supermodel wife asked for a
divorce, and
his depression led to a loss of clients and business (maybe she wanted
a
divorce because she is a supermodel stuck in Cincinnati).
Now, he wants to run away from his troubles and
convinces his friends -
dentist Doug (Tim Allen), plumber Bobby (Martin Lawrence) and computer
programmer Dudley (William H. Macy) - to take a road trip to the Pacific Ocean on their Harleys. It’s a chance to
be wild, young and free like
they haven’t been in several years (kind of like the
actors’ real careers). Of
course, hilarity ensues (at least it is
supposed to) as they get into a few scrapes, and make enemies with a
real biker
gang led by Jack (Ray Liotta).
Will Jack and
his gang beat Woody, Doug, Dudley and Bobby to a pulp?
Gathering 4
major stars like this is supposed to bring out the best in everybody as
each
one displays what made them popular, and bring out the competitive
spirit to
perform at the highest level, but this movie brings out the worst in
everyone. Wild
Hogs is a great
example
of Disneyfied, toothless, safe comedy that doesn’t get too
crazy and
outrageous, even when that is precisely what this movie is begging for.
Director Walt
Becker and writer Brad Copeland have the framework for what could have
been a
funny buddy comedy, or a slapstick classic, but can’t come up
with the material
that is good enough to be memorable. Wild
Hogs never gets wacky
and madcap enough to be that movie, and never
gets truly emotional and caring enough to be that movie. Instead, it’s a
movie running down the middle
of the road, and you know what you find in the middle of the road? Bad movies and slow squirrels.
Overall, Wild
Hogs feels like a
paint-by-numbers/movie-by- marketing-department film.
They’re buddies, so we are supposed to see
them helping each other with problems, even though most of the problems
are
tiny obstacles never explored in any kind of a deep fashion or with any
detail
to make us feel good for the character who overcomes the issue. It’s a comedy,
so whacky things are supposed
to happen, even though we only get three or four funny and wacky
moments, so
the movie never gets enough momentum to reach the level of truly great
wacky
road trip movies like Vacation
or Planes,
Trains and Automobiles or even Little
Miss Sunshine (in its funniest moments).
Worst of all,
our cast of likable actors, and Martin Lawrence, all have to oversell
the weak
material. Each one
has a moment of
crisis where they have to force the funny, which makes you feel sorry
for
them. Lawrence
has to make an idiotic face when
punched, or Macy has to put on a goofy smile when caught without his
pants. Even
Travolta is forced to act
like he is in over his head with worry as the real biker gang comes
after
them. If the movie
was crazy enough,
maybe this would work, but it isn’t, so some subtlety might
have been a good
way to go.
Even when we get
a cameo from the star of another famous motorcycle movie (desperately
trying to
act like David Carradine in Kung Fu),
my reaction was one of despair instead of
exhilaration. Wild
Hogs needs something
happening in every scene to make it better and more interesting.
1 Waffles
(Out Of 4)
Wild
Hogs is
rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content and some violence.
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2007 - WaffleMovies.com