Simon Pegg

  • Burke and Hare (2010)

    Burke and Hare (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2020) As of this writing, a decade later, it looks as if Burke and Hare is going to remain John Landis’ last film—and it doesn’t inspire regret as much as good riddance. That’s quite a statement considering that Landis’ early filmography contains such classics as An American Werewolf in London, The Blues Brothers and Trading Places. But he peaked early: A fatal accident on the set of The Twilight Zone got him tried but acquitted of manslaughter, an ordeal from which his career never really recovered. After a major hit with 1988’s Coming to America (a film whose true paternity is very much attributable to Eddie Murphy), Landis gradually retreated throughout the 1990s, directing flop after flop after flop until the movies got much smaller and less distinguishable. Landis’s filmography then focused on TV directing to such an extent that Burke and Hare was itself Landis’ first theatrical film in over a decade. It’s not a flop, but it’s not much of a success either: Taking on the real-life facts of 18th-century serial murderers for a fanciful spin, it’s a film that tries to make dark comedy out of morbid themes (cadavers-for-cash turning into a lucrative serial killing business), and it doesn’t succeed all that well. This is despite a good cast that includes Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher and others. But what can a cast do when the script isn’t up to the task? Despite the natural fit of the source material for dark comedy, Burke and Hare ends up feeling as if it’s one single joke stretched over the entire film, without much to keep things interesting. Maybe a straight thriller would have been better if a comic approach can’t get laughs. Maybe a zanier romp would have made this funnier. Or maybe this was just an ill-begotten project in the first place. While Landis gets to play with a credible historical recreation and some talented actors, Burke and Hare rarely shines. On the flip side, Landis now seems to accept what he should have done in 1990—retirement’s not too bad, and far preferable to undermining a filmography with a long tail end of flops and misses.

  • Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

    Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2019) So there’s a boarding school and then monsters attack the boarding school and that’s all you really need to know about Slaughterhouse Rulez, isn’t it? Sure, you can add complications and plot justifications such as fracking causing the monsters to rise to the surface and attack a school where misfit protagonists are bullied by upper-crust antagonists, but we all know where it’s going to end: With most of our heroes alive, all the bullies dead, and the school spectacularly blown up. I’m really not spoiling anything here, so closely does the film follow the usual arc of just about any comparable B-movie. Of course, the devil is in the detail and this is where Slaughterhouse Rulez does a bit better: small character touches and the presence of three capable adult actors (Michael Sheen as a tyrannical headmaster, but also Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in likable supporting roles) round out a young cast. The stereotypes are rampant (of course, the head bully is a rich blond guy) and the sequences are familiar, but it’s part of the charm of the film to go through the expected paces at a predictable speed. Of course, this means that there’s little left to discover once you’ve figured out where it’s going. Whether this is good or bad for Slaughterhouse Rulez will depend on your mood at the time: there’s a time and place even for a lighthearted monster movie that does everything by the numbers, and that may be this evening. I’ve seen much worse … but then again, I’ve seen much better as well.

  • Absolutely Anything (2015)

    Absolutely Anything (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2017) You’d think that a comedy movie bringing together the members of Monty Python, Simon Pegg, Kate Beckinsale (still an assured sex symbol at a respectable age) and a high-concept comic premise would lead to a minimal amount of laughter. But if you think that, then you haven’t yet seen Absolutely Anything, which is recognizably trying to be funny without actually being funny. The big premise has aliens assigning omnipotence to a human and seeing what choices he makes with it, with the fate of the human race in the balance. As an idea, it’s limitless … which explains the disappointment. It takes a while for the film to come up with things to do within that premise, and whatever throwaway gags are put on the screen seem almost too restrained compared to the possibilities. (The film also cheats by presenting a “start over again!” mechanism and using it at least three times) Simon Pegg does what he can with a classic underachiever character, but there is a limit to what he can do given the relentless mediocrity of the script. Good performances by supporting actors can’t help, and some of the alien material featuring the voices of Monty Python members often feel like undercooked inside jokes. Absolutely Anything makes the fatal mistake of feeling dull, which is just about the one unforgivable thing that a comedy in which anything is possible can make.

  • Star Trek: Beyond (2016)

    Star Trek: Beyond (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, December 2016) I’ve been more upbeat than most Trekkers about the modern Star Trek reboot series, but even I have to admit that Star Trek: Beyond truly feels like the truest follow-up to the classic series so far. Structured as a standalone adventure in deep space, this third outing wisely focuses on smaller stakes, characters as developed in the first two movies, a bit of fan-service and an upbeat attitude that makes for a refreshing evolution from the first two films. In other words, it is pure classic Trek, done with today’s attitudes and special effects technology. The result may feel a bit restrained after the galaxy-spanning intrigue of In Darkness, but it’s also satisfying with fewer afterthoughts than in previous films. Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and Simon Pegg (who also co-wrote the film) continue to be exceptionally good at incarnating the newest versions of their Trek characters, and their enthusiasm is infectious. Motorcycle usage aside, there’s one borderline-excessive “Sabotage” scene that harkens back to the first film, but it actually works well and is decently funny in itself. Still, the best aspect of the film has to be the look inside the Yorktown space station, a vertiginous showcase of SF dreams brought to life, visual effects and variable-gravity scene-blocking. It’s as memorable as anything is the series so far, and exactly the kind of showcase sequence to expect from a big-budget Trek film. I’m certainly ready for a fourth instalment.

  • Kill Me Three Times (2014)

    Kill Me Three Times (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2015) Chronologically-challenged crime comedies have been a sub-genre for almost two decades since Pulp Fiction popularized the form, and even the best examples of the genre still seem to labour under the shadow of Tarantino.  But as with every sub-genre, it does have its specific pleasures to offer to fans.  Australian effort Kill Me Three Times doesn’t re-invent anything, but it does play the game competently enough, and offers as a bonus Simon Pegg in an unusually villainous role.  Much of the story is your genre-standard mix of vengeance, corrupt cops, murderous couples, coveted bags of money and characters left for dead.  The story reboots three times, and the result doesn’t aim much higher than being a competent genre exercise.  As such, your evaluation of Kill Me Three Times will hinge on your overall tolerance for such crime comedies and improbable plot twists.  Fans will appreciate the result, what with its unusual Australian scenery and go-for-broke forward narrative rhythm: Director Kriv Stenders keeps things moving even when he’s rewinding to tells his story from another point of view.  Simon Pegg clearly has fun playing the black-clad imperturbable assassin, while Alice Braga makes for a sympathetic damsel-in-distress.  Otherwise, Kill Me Three Times fills up an unassuming evening of sunny Australian noir comedy.  It could have been much, much worse.

  • How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008)

    How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2015)  Comedies about unlikable protagonists are a tricky act to keep up: There’s a limit to the amount of bad behavior that audiences will tolerate before tuning out, and at times it looks as if How to Lose Friends & Alienate People isn’t afraid to test this limit.  Reportedly based on the true story of Englishman Toby Young working for American magazines, this film features Simon Pegg playing one of his most unlikable character: a fame-obsessed smarter-than-thou obnoxious shmuck, gifted with the ability to annoy people almost instantly.  He’s surprised when the fights he picks come back to haunt him, while the audience rolls their eyes.  Much of the film seems aimless, jumping from one set-piece to another without much connective tissue.  When How to Lose Friends & Alienate People does remember that it is a romantic comedy, it’s almost too late to care.  Similarly, the film goes from a prickly but interesting comedy to a far more conventional romantic vehicle as it goes along, although it is far from being the only such movie to suffer that fate.  I suspect that Toby Young’s autobiography is far more interesting, and that the film fell victim to the adaptation-standardization process. There are, fortunately, a few intermittent bright spots here and there, particularly in taking a look at celebrity journalist and the New York magazine scene.  Pre-fame Megan Fox shows up as an object of desire, while Kirsten Dunst shows up for an undemanding role as the hero’s true love.  Still, there’s a sense of missed opportunities, of pointless unpleasantness here that prevent How to Lose Friends & Alienate People from leaving a better impression.  At least Pegg gets to play a real cad for once, and doesn’t screw it up.

  • Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

    Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, on Blu-Ray, June 2015) It’s really not productive to start nit-picking about the anachronistic introduction of dinosaurs into the Ice Age universe in Dawn of the Dinosaurs: In an animated comedy series featuring talking ice-age animals that are already anachronistically mixed, there’s a double or triple degree of unreality that is useless to contest.  We might rather enjoy how the series suddenly develops colors, uses its newly-found new world for ever-more-expansive action sequences and even introduces a memorable character (Simon Pegg’s turn as the deliriously tough “Buck”).  Plus: extra earworm points for reviving “Walk the Dinosaur”. I still dislike the aesthetics of the series, its low-wit comedy, the over-developed action sequences and the broad obvious character arcs.  But it is recognizably an Ice Age film, with the expected highlights going to Scrat (here temporarily paired off with Scratte, until the inevitable return to his true nutty love.)  It’s almost instantly forgettable as “another instalment in the series”, although the dinosaurs do help make it more visually distinctive than the second film in the series.

  • The World’s End (2013)

    The World’s End (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, January 2014) Given the quasi-classic status that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz enjoy in my own personal ranking, I was waiting for The World’s End with loaded expectations: As the concluding entry in the so-called Cornetto trilogy, would it be as funny, as tightly-written, as visually innovative and as purely enjoyable as its two predecessors? Well, while it may not be as hilarious as Shaun of the Dead, nor as satisfying as Hot Fuzz, The World’s End definitely holds its own as a great piece of genre moviemaking. A boozy nostalgic comedy that eventually evolves into something far more outrageous (with a daring ending that crams another film’s worth of content in the last five minutes), The World’s End is perhaps most impressive for the interplay between structure and surface, as written signs comment upon the action, as the story is outlined in-text as a flashback before re-occurring during the film, or for the various (sometimes less-than-pleasant) questions raised by the ending. There is a lot of depth here, and some of it may not be entirely apparent at a first viewing. Still, The World’s End is no mere puzzle box: it works well on a surface level, whether it’s the actors reunited for the occasion (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost interchanging their hero/cad roles, obviously, but also Martin Freeman, the lovely Rosamund Pike, and a glorified cameo by Pierce Brosnan), the impressive fight choreography, the ironic dialogue and Wright’s usual attempt to push film grammar in new directions. While a first viewing leaves a bit unsettled, The World’s End steadily grows in stature as you reflect on it –another characteristic it shares with its predecessors. Mission accomplished for Wright/Pegg/Frost, then, as the wait begins for their next films.

  • Paul (2011)

    Paul (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theatres, March 2011) The mainstreaming of geek culture over the past decade has meant as many mainstream products aimed at the geek demographics than geek attitudes adopted into the mainstream.  So that’s how we end up with Paul, a broadly-accessible comedy about two geeks encountering an alien while road-tripping through the US.  Working without director Edgar Wright, comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost pair up with Greg Mottola to deliver a comedy that’s surprisingly less geeky than either Shaun of the Dead or even Hot Fuzz.  Given the change in director, it’s no surprise if the cinematic grammar of the film is far more sedate, more conventional and not quite as bitingly funny: As one would expect, it’s closer to Mottola’s Adventureland than Wright’s Scott Pilgrim.  But this different kind of atmosphere reflects the different nature of the plot: Featuring a charming and foul-mouthed gray alien, Paul works as an amiable road trip film, featuring two spacey heroes and one down-to-Earth alien who may be more human than the humans.  Sometimes, though, the film missteps: some of the violence is surprising, the profanity and media references can be tiresome and the two lead actors are far too old to play such socially retarded characters: A comparison with the similarly-themed Fanboys shows that what’s charming at age 18 can feel just a bit sad at 40.  Yet it’s hard to remain disappointed for long at a film that generally works as it should: if it’s not quite as funny, insightful or surprising as it could be, it’s still a generally good time at the movies, and a welcome comedic counterpoint to the slew of other alien-invasion films we’re seeing at the moment.

  • Run Fatboy Run (2007)

    Run Fatboy Run (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2008) The problem with “likable loser” movies is the balance to find between the likability and the loserness. Simon Pegg is gifted enough to put the audience on his side as the titular Fatboy, but the script doesn’t give him much to play on: Throughout Run Fatboy Run, saner members of the audience will wonder how and why his ex-girlfriend (Thandie Newton, who has seldom looked better) almost married him. And that’s before the screenwriter cheats and actively sabotages her relationship with her new beau. To be fair, however, the entire third act of Run Fatboy Run is a huge unbelievable cheat, destroying a character at the benefit of another, and pulling the type of Hollywood finish that doesn’t do much more than remind us that things never happen like that in real life. As with so many romantic comedies, the fun of the film isn’t in the main story as in the secondary characters, the subplots and the details. Alas, some of the material is so interesting as to overwhelm the rest: I was captivated by India de Beaufort’s presence, and wished more of the film would have been centered around her, or Dylan Moran’s more-interesting sidekick. While Run Fatboy Run itself isn’t particularly bad or irritating, it’s curiously uninvolving and never earns its conclusion as much as it tries to manipulate it more blatantly than most.

    (On DVD, May 2009) There isn’t much to say about the DVD edition of the film: It’s still an average comedy, and the DVD commentary doesn’t do much to give us insight in the film-making process. On the other hand, India de Beaufort is featured in a number of deleted scenes, so it’s not as if revisiting the film on DVD was a complete waste of time.