Girls Trip (C or 2/4 stars)
'Girls Trip' (directed by Malcolm D. Lee) is a RAUNCHY comedy about 4 longtime friends who go on an over-the-top trip together to rekindle their dormant relationships. I like the cast, I like the premise, there's a level of sweetness to the proceedings ... but boy did the non-stop profanity, gross-out sex humor & exorbitant running time bum me out. That this received such glowing reviews from pro critics makes me scratch my head; guess the bar for what's considered good comedy nowadays has been significantly lowered. Critics & audiences should appreciate funnier & classier 'comedies'.
20 some-odd yrs. after their glory days of college, the Flossy Posse (our 4 prior BFF's) re-unites for a jaunt to New Orleans. Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall) is the star of the group {$$, fame, an adoring public} & seems to have it all. Having married ex-NFL standout Stewart (Mike Colter), written a bestselling book, & founded her own self-help brand, she is well on her way to becoming the next Oprah and, has been invited to be the keynote speaker at the annual Essence Magazine conference. Behind her perfect facade, however, there are definite cracks. Her once-inseparable buddy, Sasha (Queen Latifah), with whom she had mysterious a falling-out, is now the editor of a struggling TMZ-like celebrity gossip website. Recently fired-from-her-job Dina (Tiffany Haddish) is just as sexually insatiable & reckless as ever. And conservative, divorced Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) - who is in need of getting her 'groove' back - is nervous about leaving her 2 children behind as they depart for Louisiana. Old rivalries, rekindled romances, outright MAYHEM, & friendship catharsis ensues over the course of their stay in the Crescent City.
'Girls Trip' aggravated me because there are enough agreeable ingredients to this thing & there are enough riotous laughs within to make me bummed about how disappointing it winds up being. The direction is anonymous. The premise - while initially appealing - ends in a tired, formulaic wrapped-in-a-pretty-bow conclusion. The set pieces vary in terms of success; some hit hard {involving a naked bum, a gold "statue", a dance battle with a rival group of friends}, some miss big {more on that later}. The production values are pretty shoddy {bizarre use of obvious green screen in spots}. But WORST of all, despite some nice performances from the charming cast & some unearned sentimentality at the end of the movie, 'Girls Trip' is beyond vulgar.
Tiffany Haddish's Dina is a tornado of disgusting vulgarity. Truth be told, she made me laugh ... a lot. Some of her lines are delivered with such speed & comedic timing that I just sat in awe. That said, a little of her goes a lonnggg way. Her schtick got old near the end. And compared to Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, to me, her performance doesn't hold-up. I didn't care for her beating a co-worker to within an inch of his life for no reason. I didn't like her ripping in to her 'girlfriends' with every derogatory/curse word in the book, praying about it, loosely apologizing, then go right back to being a pretty nasty person. That goes for several of the main characters. A few of them are debauched, adulterous, vile, but 'sweet' ... so it's ok, right!?
There's a painful unfunny sequence involving Jada Pinkett Smith (who gives an inconsistent performance) & Tiffany Haddish who are suspended from a zip line & ends up projectile peeing on the crowd below. It's gross, stupid & literally unbelievable. There's an oral-sex tutorial that involves a banana & a grapefruit that must be seen to be believed (again, gross, not particularly funny), & a follow-up scene involving the grapefruit is not funny, at all -- I guess dick jokes aren't going anywhere. There's also a hallucinogenic club 'trip' involving absinthe that goes terribly wrong, and ... I didn't laugh once.
'Girls Trip' dismayingly showcases the worst of black culture stereotypes. Many of the plot points are rubbish. The humor is juvenile. And if the film is gonna be vulgar, at least be cleverly vulgar -- I'm depressed that this is what people find funny. The movie's message - the value of loyal friends - is nice, but not when so little is actually nice inside the story. Most of the 'humor' takes a back seat to generic friendship melodrama in the last half hour and, that made the proceedings feel even longer than the already bloated 120 min. run time. I can't condemn this film altogether because I laughed heartily a good 4 or 5 times, but some boredom, inconsistencies, crudeness (without edginess) & artificial sincerity makes this movie a disappointing one for me.
20 some-odd yrs. after their glory days of college, the Flossy Posse (our 4 prior BFF's) re-unites for a jaunt to New Orleans. Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall) is the star of the group {$$, fame, an adoring public} & seems to have it all. Having married ex-NFL standout Stewart (Mike Colter), written a bestselling book, & founded her own self-help brand, she is well on her way to becoming the next Oprah and, has been invited to be the keynote speaker at the annual Essence Magazine conference. Behind her perfect facade, however, there are definite cracks. Her once-inseparable buddy, Sasha (Queen Latifah), with whom she had mysterious a falling-out, is now the editor of a struggling TMZ-like celebrity gossip website. Recently fired-from-her-job Dina (Tiffany Haddish) is just as sexually insatiable & reckless as ever. And conservative, divorced Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) - who is in need of getting her 'groove' back - is nervous about leaving her 2 children behind as they depart for Louisiana. Old rivalries, rekindled romances, outright MAYHEM, & friendship catharsis ensues over the course of their stay in the Crescent City.
'Girls Trip' aggravated me because there are enough agreeable ingredients to this thing & there are enough riotous laughs within to make me bummed about how disappointing it winds up being. The direction is anonymous. The premise - while initially appealing - ends in a tired, formulaic wrapped-in-a-pretty-bow conclusion. The set pieces vary in terms of success; some hit hard {involving a naked bum, a gold "statue", a dance battle with a rival group of friends}, some miss big {more on that later}. The production values are pretty shoddy {bizarre use of obvious green screen in spots}. But WORST of all, despite some nice performances from the charming cast & some unearned sentimentality at the end of the movie, 'Girls Trip' is beyond vulgar.
Tiffany Haddish's Dina is a tornado of disgusting vulgarity. Truth be told, she made me laugh ... a lot. Some of her lines are delivered with such speed & comedic timing that I just sat in awe. That said, a little of her goes a lonnggg way. Her schtick got old near the end. And compared to Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, to me, her performance doesn't hold-up. I didn't care for her beating a co-worker to within an inch of his life for no reason. I didn't like her ripping in to her 'girlfriends' with every derogatory/curse word in the book, praying about it, loosely apologizing, then go right back to being a pretty nasty person. That goes for several of the main characters. A few of them are debauched, adulterous, vile, but 'sweet' ... so it's ok, right!?
There's a painful unfunny sequence involving Jada Pinkett Smith (who gives an inconsistent performance) & Tiffany Haddish who are suspended from a zip line & ends up projectile peeing on the crowd below. It's gross, stupid & literally unbelievable. There's an oral-sex tutorial that involves a banana & a grapefruit that must be seen to be believed (again, gross, not particularly funny), & a follow-up scene involving the grapefruit is not funny, at all -- I guess dick jokes aren't going anywhere. There's also a hallucinogenic club 'trip' involving absinthe that goes terribly wrong, and ... I didn't laugh once.
'Girls Trip' dismayingly showcases the worst of black culture stereotypes. Many of the plot points are rubbish. The humor is juvenile. And if the film is gonna be vulgar, at least be cleverly vulgar -- I'm depressed that this is what people find funny. The movie's message - the value of loyal friends - is nice, but not when so little is actually nice inside the story. Most of the 'humor' takes a back seat to generic friendship melodrama in the last half hour and, that made the proceedings feel even longer than the already bloated 120 min. run time. I can't condemn this film altogether because I laughed heartily a good 4 or 5 times, but some boredom, inconsistencies, crudeness (without edginess) & artificial sincerity makes this movie a disappointing one for me.