The Brothers Grimsby

2016 action comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A slacker football fan reunites with his younger brother, now a super-spy. The former gets in the latter's way, but they have to work together to save the world from a terrorist.

You want proof (other than my poor writing and lack of movie knowledge) that I really shouldn't even have a blog? It's because of Sacha Baron Cohen. I was watching this movie and hating it and trying to remember if I hated The Dictator about the same or if I liked it a little more. So I looked it up and found out that I gave The Dictator a 14/20 even though I can't recall a single thing I would have liked about it.

The gap between this--co-written by Sacha Baron Cohen and a couple others--and Borat or Bruno is immense. I know that the guerrilla stylings of those two would have gotten a little stale by now, but I know Cohen is better than this. He's almost funny here, especially with the physical stuff, and it's partly because the guy is willing to do anything to get a laugh. But he seems to be morphing into Tom Green or somebody, and so much of the comedy here just seems to be like they've accepted a Let's-See-What-We-Can-Make-People-Watch challenge. The most obvious examples of this feature tea-bagging and elephant ejaculate. I'm no prude, but if you're going with tea-bagging and elephant ejaculate, it at least has to be funny. Nothing about this was really funny, and the way most of it just seemed to easy actually annoyed me. An early reference to Bill Cosby, a lame recurring fake Daniel Radcliffe cameo, and a line about pedophiles at Legoland just seem like they're aimed at middle schoolers. Some lines are oddly homophobic, too, like they've been lifted from the 80s.

This lets you down with the narrative, too. You just never really care about the relationship with the brothers, and the spy stuff never really seems to matter all that much. Action scenes will make you dizzy. And you'll be really glad when it's all over.

Maybe you liked Borat. And maybe you thought you liked The Dictator. Maybe you remember the preview for this and thought it looked a little funny. None of that will matter because you aren't going to like this.