Yes, I know The Heat's been out for a few weeks and everyone's already reviewed it, but I feel I might have a unique perspective on the movie that I can share with my fans. All 20 of them. Now, before I begin, I want to point out that The Heat is rated R, but just for strong language, so if your kids are under the age of 12, don't take them to see it. If they're twelve or over and want to see it, go ahead and take them. Alright, on with the review!
First of all, The Heat is very funny. It's most definitely the funniest movie I've seen all year. Not the best movie, mind you, that honor belongs to Monsters University. But, it's the funniest. Funnier than The Hangover Part Thr3e, funnier than Identity Thief, and most certainly funnier than The Internship. Wait. Shit, Burt Wonderstone. Okay, it's tied for the funniest movie of the year. If you're just looking for laughs, I highly recommend this movie. In fact, this movie also has quite a bit of substance to it. There's only one problem.
The plot. It's predictable, it's derivative, and it's just not funny. I think you all know who the main characters are. The loudmouthed Boston cop and the straight-laced FBI agent. You can already tell that this is a very unoriginal plot, and has been done in EVERY COP MOVIE EVER MADE. Not that it's a bad setup, it's just not usually what makes great comedies. There are also a few things that it seems like they built upon, but then the movie was too long and they had to cut it out. The movie was still a little over two hours, and it's hard to imagine that it was originally EVEN LONGER. The plot isn't the only bad part of the movie.
The villains suck. You're supposed to think that we haven't seen the villain and then think that one guy's the villain and then realize that his partner's the villain, even though everyone has already figured out that he's the villain twenty minutes ago. Basically, there's this albino guy that's apparently trying to find the same guy that Melissa and Sandra are, along with his partner, played by Taran Killam. Melissa thinks that the albino guy is the villain, because he looks and acts like a bad guy, but everyone already knows that someone else is the bad guy. Now, I don't know who the rest of the audience thought the bad guy was, though I know my brother had a terrible guess, I pretty much knew it was good ol' Taran. In fact, at one point Melissa said the villain could be anyone, someone on Sandra's team or someone on her's or someone on neither's, but she was pretty sure it was the albino guy, and I said fairly loudly, "It's Taran Killam!" That's not the only predictable part either. I knew Melissa's brother would get shot, I knew that the climax would involve him, I knew that the Red Falls killer was innocent, and just about every other plot point in the entire movie was discovered by me well in advance of it being shown on screen. You want to know why? Because they kept poking at it! Why would they even mention the Red Falls killer if it wouldn't come up again? What was the purpose of her brother being so close to the villain? They should be more subtle with their foreshadowing! Do you think The Wizard of Oz would have succeeded if everyone in the movie went around calling the Wizard "the Man Behind the Curtain?" NO!
Oddly enough, one of the few things that did surprise me was something that happened in 21 Jump Street AND The Other Guys. Sandy and Melissa had spent the night drinking, and when Sandy B. woke up, she discovered that she had given her car to someone. He tried to apprehend him, but he made it to the car. And then the car exploded. However, unlike the other movies, this one wasn't making fun of the classic "sudden explosion" scene, it was using it. How do I know this? Because they weren't the least bit shaken by the explosion. Also, at one point, they hid from a grenade by ducking behind a box. It worked. A little lesson, Paul Feig, never go Crystal Skull.
Oh, are you wondering how I knew that Taran Killam was the bad guy? Because he had one line in all of his scenes. No one gives Killam one line per scene and only three scenes. It was obvious that he was going to be important to the plot. All in all, this movie was okay. I give it a B-. BUT, if you're looking for a really well-made, hilarious, original buddy-cop comedy, see 21 Jump Street or The Other Guys. You'll be glad you did. Speaking of unoriginal comedies, Grown Ups 2 comes out this Friday, and I can't wait to test my theory that Adam Sandler movies are getting EVEN WORSE.
Story is end!
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