Borat
Out of context: Reply #38
- Started
- Last post
- 55 Responses
- Jaline0
This is what my friend said about it:
(LOOOONG)
"I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, judging by the reviews I've been reading, what many of my friends had told me about the movie, and the reactions of just about every single person in the movie theatre with us tonight, but that movie was seriously WEAK.
I don't always go for the elitist view that things start to suck as soon as they become popular, but in this particular case, I'd say that, yeah, it really did start to suck the minute it became popular. I should have known it would be like this, but maybe because I'd been waiting almost a year for it to come out, or maybe because Sacha Baron Cohen has never disappointed me before, or maybe...I don't know, for whatever reason, I had incredibly high expectations that I'd be rolling in the aisles laughing, and I can honestly say that I laughed out loud a grand total of six times at this thing.
What I have always found brilliant about all of Baron Cohen's characters - but Borat in particular - is how they're these totally ridiculous caricatures who somehow manage to get their unknowing victims to say and do some really candid, terrible, and altogether real things. It's in the way he manages to manipulate real life situations and people, and the way he reacts to their reactions, that makes it pee-your-pants funny. Everything he does in his skits is improvised, which makes it pretty impressive in and of itself. But then there are all the unexpected little gems - the racist and sexist comments and everything in between - that come from the supposedly "normal," everyday people he catches off guard, that make his skits both incredibly funny and really sad at the same time. I've always said that his comedy is not just about the offensive jokes and the potty humour, but that there's an element of...I don't know, social commentary (?), that makes it so very fascinating to watch. It's the improvised, candid, real stuff that makes the whole thing so damn brilliant.
The movie seemed to lack a lot of that. There were a few really funny, candid moments, but they were few and far between. I think the main problem was that, while the skits work as individual skits the way they're presented on the tv show, the comedy fails itself when you try to make a story out of it. All the stuff in between was too contrived and seemed to be trying too hard, and it just wasn't very funny to me.
What's worse, I felt like the whole thing was dumbed down to appeal to the kind of mainstream North American audience that really enjoys Jack Black films. While I can appreciate that a lot of people like that kind of thing, it's just not my kind of humour. The nude wrestling scene was a little bit funny to me for about three seconds. But it kept going and going and going and I was sitting there thinking "this is painful," while everybody else in the audience was shitting themselves. I'm not putting you down if you think that kind of thing is funny, though I suppose it may seem that way; all I'm saying is, that's not the Borat I know and love! It seemed like there was way too much of the in-your-face, "look, we're being really funny!" stuff that I know a lot of people find to be incredibly funny, but always fails to make me laugh. The scene with him falling and tripping and breaking all kinds of shit in the antique shop? HAHAHAHA, LOOK! HE'S BREAKING STUFF! I'm sorry, it just doesn't do it for me.
And I'm not saying that any of the original Borat skits are necessarily subtle, because they're not. My point is just that I really don't need a fat man's naked ass in my face in order for me to know when it's time to laugh.
My sister was all "what did you expect, guy? It's a FOX film!" on the phone tonight, after I told her how disappointed I was. Yeah, I should have known better. Obviously, this film was made to appeal to a more mainstream audience, but I still feel like all the slapstick crap cheapened it for me.
(And the few bits and pieces of the movie that I actually did find funny were only funny because I was remembering the much more hilarious versions of the same jokes that I've seen a million times in the original skits. So I guess I can see how people who've seen very little of the originals might find this movie funny, because it isn't a complete failure in the comedy department; it's certainly superior to a lot of the other crap that's out there. But as Sacha Baron Cohen creation, it totally fails. It could have been soooo much better, and it makes me all kinds of sad that it wasn't.)"