Ben Falcone

  • Superintelligence (2020)

    Superintelligence (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) It only took “Melissa McCarthy in a Ben Falcone film” to bring any expectations regarding Superintelligence down to a manageable level. The McCarthy/Falcone duo, married in real life, has a dismal track record on-screen: their movies are usually designed to showcase McCarthy’s increasingly overexposed comic persona, making everything secondary to sustained riffs on the same themes. Superintelligence, to its credit, takes a toned-down variation of this approach to the idea of hard-takeoff Artificial Intelligence, pitting “the most ordinary woman in the world” (McCarthy) against an AI pondering what to do with humanity. As a science-fictional plot device, “innocent decides the fate of humanity by their behaviour” is well-worn material—but as a Science Fiction critic on an extended sabbatical, I find quite a lot of value in seeing a comic take on the material, more as a marker of what a mainstream audience can be expected to absorb. Clearly, we’re at a point where few would be surprised to accept that an AI would be able to learn everything from us from our online behaviour, and reach us through the connected devices in our houses. Of course, Superintelligence sweetens/dumbs down the concept: this isn’t The Forbin Project, and so the AI is incarnated by the voice and occasional presence from James Corden, adding further comedy (some of it dubious) to the proceedings. The biggest ironic criticism that one can level at Superintelligence is that for a McCarthy/Falcone production, almost literally any actress in the world could have played McCarthy’s role—it doesn’t really rely on her persona, and, in fact, may be harmed by it. McCarthy as “the most ordinary woman in the world” is a boring waste of talent, even within the script’s expected infantilization of challenging ideas. The ending is never in doubt, nor are any of the subplot strands. Still, the film gets a few chuckles, and makes an exemplary case of how once-nerdy ideas get continuously absorbed in the mainstream until they become literally just jokes in service of an actress looking for a star vehicle. I didn’t dislike Superintelligence as much as I expected to, but it does remain a very safe, very mainstream comedy, almost to the point of being duller than anyone would have anticipated.

  • The Boss (2016)

    The Boss (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, July 2016) Five years after her breakout role in Bridesmaid, Melissa McCarthy has become an authentic movie star, to the level where she’s able to put together her own vanity projects. The Boss couldn’t be any more purely McCarthy, revolving around a character she created, co-written by her husband Ben Falcone (who also directs), and featuring her in a role that takes up most of the film. The result, on the other hand, may be too much McCarthy. While not a disaster, The Boss does feel meandering, overlong and curiously unfunny. While the structure of the script is conventional enough in a comic-underdog way, the rest of the film doesn’t come together. McCarthy’s character is unpleasant (although not as actively irritating as some of her previous roles), the jokes don’t reach for much and the surprises are few. Other players such as Kristen Bell and Peter Dinklage do their best to keep up, but this is the McCarthy show and while she’s OK as an actress, she gives herself no favours as a writer. Some bits work even then they feel familiar (such as the slow-motion girl scout fight sequence) while others just flop aimlessly. What’s unfortunate is that the McCarthy persona is fundamentally irritating, and pushing it too far ends up alienating viewers (See Identity Theft), while not taking advantage of it leads to boredom and restlessness. There’s an ideal balance to strike, but it’s not to be found in The Boss, which (at best0 merely works as a run-of-the-mill comedy.