Review: Get Him To The Greek

Love him or hate him, Russell Brand is here to stay.

Two years ago, I might well have sat on the latter side of the two but slowly, very slowly, the man is winning me over. Gone are the awful hair styles, skin tight drainpipes and high-heeled boots, now replaced by a genuinely funny, surprisingly eloquent man who still talks like a dick but can pull it off pretty damn well.

So, after precariously dipping his toes into the murky Hollywood waters with bit-parts and secondary characters in a fair few big-budget comedies (the awful Bedtime Stories
and the actually quite funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Brand has been given his first major role in the form of the new Apatow-produced Get Him To The Greek.

More of a spiritual successor to the aforementioned Forgetting Sarah Marshall than a full blown sequel, Greek goes a little something like this: Aldous Snow (Brand) is a huge British rock-star who, after releasing an awful (and not to mention racist) new single and album by the name of 'African Child' swiftly spirals uncontrollably into a critically hated has-been. He doesn't take it too well, turning to drink, sex, drugs and the party life once again (he was completely clean beforehand) and it is here that we are then introduced to Jonah Hill's character Aaron. A savvy record label assistant working for none other than Mr P. Diddy himself - or Sergio as he is named in the film - , Hill is given the task of bringing Snow to Los Angeles to perform a ten year anniversary show at the Greek Theatre, hoping to earn money for the label and reignite Snow's career as a result.

That's really about it as far as the story-line goes, unless you include the small 'love' subplots of Snow still yearning for ex-girlfriend Jackie Q (a still-famous singer who likes to sing about her own arse-hole...) and Aarons constantly tired nursing girlfriend Daphne. Shallow it most certainly is but thankfully, the actors more than make up for the lack of anything meaty story-line wise.

I tend to be extremely critical with about 99% of the films I watch and though I can't say that I truly 'liked' this film, it did have me genuinely laughing every couple of minutes. Punch-lines and ridiculous scenarios are thrown at you constantly and whilst a bulk of them don't really hit their target (I'm definitely done with anal-rape dildo scenes forever), most of them do, even when P.Diddy is involved (which I never thought would work). Brand and Hill work great together and it's the scenes where the two of them are just chatting, arguing or dicking around that garners the most laughs. A brief scene in an airplane where Brand explains how he feels about Hill's character ("respect peppered with a sense of hate") or a drunken night in a club where Hill tries to imitate Brands laid back, English accent to a passing woman; these are the golden moments of the movie and they're probably the bits the actors actually ad-libbed themselves.

It's that comedic spontaneity that truly brings the characters to life and though it's smothered by a long running time (OK 109 minutes isn't that long but the end drags like a one-legged dog), a rather flimsy story and a smattering of terribly made music for Brand's character, it's still most definitely worth the price of admission if you're in the mood for something a bit crude, pretty damn silly but actually laugh out loud funny.

Best Bit: The Geoffrey/Furry wall party

Worst Bit: The music

Overall Rating: C+

Let The Right One In Gets The American Treatment

Remember that fantastically awesome Swedish vampire book from John Ajvide Lindqvist by the name of Let The Right One In? Pretty damn great wasn't it?

Now, remember the equally as brilliant 2008 movie of the same name? Yeah, pretty special wasn't it?

So what happens when you have a great foreign book that's been transformed near flawlessly into a great foreign film? Why you hand the rights over to Hollywood of course!

Now sporting a new and shorter name titled 'Let Me In' (apparently America isn't cool with two more words in the title), the film is the latest bastardisation from the US and will be on its way to your cinema screens October 1st of this year. The trailer can be seen below.

Directed by Matt 'Cloverfield' Reeves, the cast includes new face on the block Chloé Moretz (Hit Girl from Kick-Ass) as protagonist Eli (though they've changed the name to Abby) and Kodi Smit-Mcphee as Oskar (now known as Owen). I just love it when original material gets raped by the fat cats, don't you!?! (High-fives self).

Whilst it does look to be a semi-solid recreation, i can't help but feel pure hate for this type of thing.