Failure to Launch Movie Review:

Lively and enjoyable but nothing remotely special--this could be just about any romantic comedy ever made, complete with a contrived premise and a bright cast to distract us from the same old formula.

Tripp (McConaughey) is a 35-year-old still living at home, and his parents (Bates and Bradshaw) have had enough. So they hire the "facilitator" Paula (Parker) to pretend to be his girlfriend and lure him into independence. Of course, love blossoms in unexpected places, and suddenly Paula has a crisis on her hands. Which gets rather perilous when Tripp's buddies (Bartha and Cooper) find out what's up.

Sure, it's watchable, with the occasional funny moment and the standard manipulative plot that still manages to generate a few moments of enjoyable emotion. But it's such a weak script that the film is difficult to like. The three central men are complete losers, and that has nothing to do with the fact that they live with their parents; they're all macho morons who leer at woman and indulge in the manliest of manly activities, then turn adorably dumb so they can get the girl. And there's a lame subplot involving a mockingbird, which the writers just abandon halfway through.

The performances are at least full of life, making the most of the each character's specific eccentricities. McConaughey and Parker fare the worse in this sense, because Tripp and Paula are the least quirky people here. They're the ones who can't ruffle the tired plot. Around them, Bates and Bradshaw have the most gleefully insane roles, while Bartha and Deschanel (as Paula's offbeat flatmate) get their own goofy plotline. Cooper is so hyperactively smiley that you fear his sparkly blue eyes might explode at any moment.

In the end, it's Parker who saves the film. She's good enough to actually make us believe she finds Tripp even remotely charming, and we're willing to go along with her. Dey directs it in that energetic but bland Hollywood by-the-numbers way that keeps it just this side of ludicrous. So the forced, predictable climax almost comes across as rather sweet.

Rich Cline

 

An apporiately titled disaster; Failure to Launch stays grounded and then sinks into unforgettable territory.  This formulaic romantic comedy from director Tom Dey unfolds one absurd scene after another while having Matthew McConaughey nearly embarrassing himself and Sarah Jessica Parker showing that she can not do anything consistent outside of Sex & the City.

McConaughey plays a 35-year old momma’s boy named Trip that still lives at home with his two loving parents (Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw).  Trip somehow is also a ladies man that uses the fact that he lives at home to his advantage each time he wants to dump his current fling.  He does have a successful full-time job, but his still manages to have time to hang out with his two buddies, Ace (Justin Bartha) and Demo (Bradley Cooper), who are also grown men living at home. 

Trip’s parents finally become tiresome of their perfect boy’s antics and home leeching that they hire Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker) to assist in getting him to move out.  Paula’s makes her living by having parents hire her to date their homebody sons and assist in their decision to move out.  Her theories are that once the at home males have a wonderful relationship that their confidence will skyrocket and then they be able to leave the security of their parents.  Of course Trip is not your average under-confident male, in fact he is overconfident. Unsurprisingly, Paula actually begins having feelings for Trip and then the actions of the cliché ridden romantic comedy ensue.

Though every aspect in the film is to blame, the script itself by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember is not a strong blueprint to build on.  The characters are all one dimensional except for Paula’s goofy roommate Kit (Zooey Deschanel), who has a sworn death mission against a mockingbird that chirps outside her window.  The plot points do not add up, along with tiresome additions of animals attacking Trip, which include a chipmunk, a lizard, and a dolphin.  There are a couple of chuckles throughout, and the funniest scene in the film takes place in a gun shop, but there is not much significance as to why Paula and Kit would be in a gun shop.  A formulaic romantic comedy does not have to embody consist merit, but it does need a spark of life or wit, which Failure to Launch frantically misses.

Tom Dey’s choices as director do not help matters.  The fact that he decides to let Terry Bradshaw pointlessly walk around naked during a three minute scene concludes that he was desperately reaching.  There again, he did not have much to work with the script, perhaps it would have been better for him to have the actors improvise.

Matthew McConaughey has to stop taking these silly roles.  He once again merely exercises his way through his lead comedic role, much like he did in The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.  How did an actor that broke through with so much promise in A Time to Kill become just eye candy?  Hopefully he will bounce back. There is also virtually no chemistry between McConaughey and his leading lady Sarah Jessica Parker.  Parker’s acting is so annoyingly wooden that it is just shameful.  In fact, the two supporting performances from the wonderful Zooey Deschanel and Justin Bartha knock the performances by McConaughey and Parker off of the radar.  The great Kathy Bates plays a stock character as Trip’s loving mother, and former NFL great Terry Bradshaw shows a lack of experience in his role as Trip’s father.

Failure to Launch is a film that will do business at the box office, much like another similar McConaughey romantic film, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.  The film just misfires from beginning to end in nearly every area.  Perhaps better writers will cultivate in Hollywood for romantic comedies, but as long as films like this one are making money, do not count on it.

1 star out of 4

By Bailey Henderson

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