xmikex said

[orig][quote]

Saw this a while ago, and here's what I thought.

Overall I'd give this 3.5 stars out of 5, with a slight nod towards 4 stars. It's a fun movie with an interesting take on a old theme. A lot of it made me laugh, and overall I was glad I saw it.

BUT was anyone else in excruciating pain for the first half hour or so? The dialog at the beginning of the movie was so unbelievably over the top. It definitely got better as the film progressed, but the early scenes with Rainn Wilson, and the phone call scene were so poorly written. The first thing I thought was "Wow, whoever wrote this really doesn't understand people at all." It tried way too hard to be clever.

And speaking of Rainn Wilson, why is he only in 3 minutes of the movie? Why is Jason Bateman's character so dry, and underused? Why does Michael Cera have so little diaglog? These are all incredible comedic actors who are doing nothing in a movie that is supposed to be a comedy. Way too much of the dialog was reserved for Juno's Daria-esque way-too-mature-to-really-be-16 dialog. It made me kind of resent her character sometimes.

If you can ignore this film trying (and I mean really trying) to take a bite out of Wes Anderson's style, it's not a bad film, and definitely worth seeing. Although I don't think it'll be quite worth the indie acclaim that it will probably recieve.