Love, Guaranteed is a romantic comedy film directed by Mark Stephen Johnson. The plot follows Nick (Damon Wayans Jr), a man who has been on over 1000 dates with the dating website Love, Guaranteed and is still yet to find ‘the one’. Enter Susan (Rachel Leigh Cooke), a lawyer who is in desperate need of a winning case, sparks fly and love blooms.

This film very much gets worse as time goes on, the characters become more and more unlikable and considering the fact that start off as poorly conceived cliches you can imagine how bad they are by the end. The message of the film seems to be oddly inconsistent and change on the fly. At one point the film is pushing that it is wrong to guarantee love, but by the end of the film it is fine to guarantee love because the baddies payed the main characters some money; the film is morally bankrupt.

Wayans Jr tries his best to inject some much-needed charism into this film, because god knows that Cooke is a wet blanket, but the poor script leaves him with little to work with. Everything about this film feels artificial and as though it has been made by comity, that is to say everything feels just a bit too safe and false.

Overall, this is a very by the numbers rom com, you can tell no real thought or effort was put into it. The romantic spark isn’t there and the characters and their dialogue is just awful.

Pros.

Wayans is trying

Cons.

It is on for too long

It feels low effort

The leads have no chemistry

The characters start off as cliches and quickly get worse

0.5/5

Reviewed by Luke    

Bridesmaids is a comedy film directed by Paul Feig. The story follows Annie (Kristen Wiig), a woman whose life is coming apart at the seams, yet she handed the responsibility of being her best friend Lillian’s (Maya Rudolph) maid of honour. What follows is a struggle for power between Annie and Helen (Rose Byrne), Lillian’s new fancy friend who seems to upstage Annie at every turn, with the struggle between the two threatening to take over the whole wedding.

I have been meaning to watch this for some time, I enjoy the films of Paul Feig for the most part, with the exception of his Ghostbusters film, so I went in with high expectations. It does serve to be a more nuanced version of a gender swapped Hangover, which many accused it of being, and is probably the better of the two films.

I appreciated the comedy of this film it was far more subtle then I was expecting to be. When I saw the names of those involved with it, I was expecting gross out jokes and a lot of physical comedy, and though that is a part of the comedy profile of the film there are also a lot of smart jokes as well. In that regard Melissa McCarthy was actually bearable, not only that but she made me laugh.

Overall, this film showed off the talent of all involved except Byrne who it wasted badly, a strong comedy film and a mostly enjoyable watch.

Pros.

The comedy

Reigning in McCarthy and the others

Not relying on gross out gags and slapstick and having some actual well thought out smart jokes

Nailing the drama

Cons.

There is no reason that this film is on for two hours and ten minutes

4/5

Reviewed by Luke   

Patrick The Pug is a romantic comedy film directed by Mandie Fletcher. The plot sees young woman Sarah (Beattie Edmondson), become stuck with her grandmothers’ pug after she dies. At first Sarah hates the dog as it screws up her life in many ways, but then she learns to love it. Also there is some kind of Bridget Jones esque romantic comedy happening in the background.

So, this is very watchable but also very tame. The issue with it is that it doesn’t seem to know who it is aiming itself at. On the one hand it is playing up all the dumb humour with the dog, which by the end of the film seems to have supernatural powers, that clearly appeals to kids, but then it has all the romantic comedy stuff for grownups. So who is it for?

The humour is passable, and Edmondson is fine in the lead role, that is the thing, nothing is never bad or good with this film everything is just fine. I enjoyed seeing some other famous British faces filling out the cast, though for the most part they only had very small roles, but still somehow managed to out act Edmondson.

There is also a troubling underdone of a white saviour narrative here and there in it, with Sarah appearing to lead her non white students away from a life of crime, which has some not so stellar implications, but hey maybe that was just how I read it.

Overall, this is not good or bad just very meh, but watchable meh. A knock off Bridget Jones with a pug.

Pros.

It is very watchable’

It feels like comforting junk food

Cons.

It isn’t very funny

It feels too safe and as though it doesn’t know who it was made for

The racial undertones

2.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days is a romantic comedy film directed by Donald Petrie. The plot sees two people begin bets, Andie (Kate Hudson), is trying to prove that by being needy and overly clingy she can lose a guy in ten days. Whereas Ben (Matthew McConaughey), is trying to prove that he can make a girl fall in love with him in ten days, both have varying degrees of success and then eventually end up together.

I take umbrage with the premise of this film, both of these people are shady and play games with the others emotions, they shouldn’t be together at the end of the film; in real life they wouldn’t be. Rom-Coms really seem to have toxic messages.

There is some cheese ball appeal to the film and both the leads are charming and seem to be having fun. That said the issues with this film don’t stem from the performances, it is the writing that is at fault. So not only is the premise of the film troubling, there are also all the hallmark clichés that have gone to make the genre somewhat of a laughingstock.

Overall, this film is poorly written, not just that the premise also promotes unhealthy ideas and forces clichés and stereotypes on us.

Pros.

Hudson and McConaughey

Cons.

It is clichéd

Everyone is a stereotype

The premise is troublesome

The fun is very limited

2/5

Reviewed by Luke   

Safety Not Guaranteed is a comedy drama romance film directed by Colin Trevorrow. The plot follows three reporters as they interview a man (Mark Duplass) who say he is producing a means to travel back in time. One of the reporters Darius (Aubrey Plaza), is send in undercover with wannbe time traveller Kenneth (Duplass), only to end up falling in love with him and finding out that he does in fact have a means of getting back to the past.

I enjoyed this film quite a bit, I think that it works on two layers. Firstly it works as a great science fiction film, the time travel stuff is fascinating, and I like how they don’t reveal it one way or the other until the end of the film. Secondly it works as a great rom com as well the relationships feel very genuine and believable, Duplass and Plaza have great on-screen chemistry.

The film has a great heart and a few good laugh out loud monuments. My personal favourite character was probably Jeff (Jake Johnson), because I loved what they did with a character who is basically a jerk to everyone around him showing his tragic motivation, he is fundamentally lonely. Normally I am against subplots about side characters, but in this case it worked. Also I am a huge New Girl fan.

Overall, a very strong indie darling with a great heart and some mind-bending science fiction.

Pros.

The heart

The humour

The chemistry between the leads

The ending reveal

Jake Johnson

Cons.

It starts a little slow.

4.5/5

Reviewed by Luke    

Blended is a romantic comedy film directed by Frank Coraci. The plot sees two single parents end up going on holiday together with their kids to Africa. At first the two parents, Jim (Adam Sandler) and Lauren (Drew Barrymore), hate each other and don’t get along, but often as these sort of films go they end up madly in love by the end.

This film is viewed as one of the trash tier Sandler films by a lot of people, but I have to say upon watching it myself I enjoyed it; maybe that says something about my taste. I think this film benefits from being more subdued than Sandler’s normal fare. Yes, you have the cheap poo jokes and what not that are the life blood of Sandler comedy, but you also have this single parent character study where we see that Jim is actually quite a layered person to add on top of those scat jokes. Sandler’s performance here reminded me a bit of his character in Funny People in that he is a tragic character.

On top of this you have the romance between Sandler and Barrymore’s characters, which is incredibly strong. In recent years Sandler has being playing romantic leads by the side of Jenifer Anniston, but his ultimate on-screen romantic pairing will always be Drew Barrymore. The spark that was first shown in The Wedding Singer is still alive and well.

My one complaint would be that Terry Crews character, who is a sort of lounge singer who shows up at inopportune times, becomes tiresome quickly and they beat that joke into the ground.

Overall, a surprisingly sweet, heartfelt film that has a lot of say about grief and raising kids. Benefited immensely by obvious spark between Sandler and Barrymore.

Pros.

Romance

The depth

Some good jokes

Barrymore and Sandler have great chemistry

Cons.

Not all of the jokes land and they keep reusing some of the worse ones

4/5

Reviewed by Luke