Loner1586
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(1/5/04 7:41 am)
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Along Came Polly Reviews
Here are 2 reviews I found:
from the Daily Variety-
by: Robert Koehler
Writer-director John Hamburg does everything he can to pair up Ben Stiller's stiff, safety-first corporate man with Jennifer Aniston's free spirit in "Along Came Polly," but the two are so fundamentally incompatible that story loses credibility long before the gags stop coming. Without the outrageous, talking-point scenes that broad, post-Farrelly exercises like this depend on, pic will do merely modest date biz in the dead of January, followed by better ancillary biz.
Repping Hamburg's third project in a row with Stiller (both worked on "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" , "Polly" is neither as outlandish nor as funny as their previous collaborations. "Polly" is, however, several shades better in all moviemaking departments than Hamburg's spindly 1998 Sundance debut, "Safe Men."
In addition, the pic's aces supporting cast -- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Debra Messing, Hank Azaria, Bryan Brown, Michele Lee and Bob Dishy -- mask the slightness of the odd couple foolery, making many weak scenes click. Their perfs are a testimony to how many fine actors in Hollywood are constantly in search of a good comedy.
Even if his best man Sandy (Hoffman) is prone to falling on his ass, groom Reuben Feffer (Stiller) has a smooth wedding and start to his marriage to Lisa (Messing), capped with a St. Barts honeymoon. But cautious Reuben, ever aware of dangers as a risk assessment analyst for a big insurance firm, begs off a scuba diving venture led by Frenchman Claude (Azaria, initially naked, astoundingly buff and pouring on the mock accent). Later, Reuben discovers Claude and bride Lisa doing the nasty on Claude's schooner.
Reuben returns to Gotham, where his boss, Stan Indursky (Baldwin, amusingly pitching his voice into a throaty New Yawk register), assigns him to do a full analysis on hot-shot Aussie CEO Leland Van Lew (Brown) to see if he's insurable.
Meanwhile, best friend Sandy drags Reuben along to an art gallery opening where Reuben encounters Polly (Aniston), who's serving drinks.
Between his inept way of approaching her and her borderline-insane indecisiveness, it's a miracle that they get together for a date -- but they do, at a Moroccan restaurant, which Reuben agrees to, even though he can't handle spicy food and has irritable bowel syndrome. Date literally ends in the bathroom of her sloppy downtown flat, shared with her blind ferret, with the floodgates opened to a wave of poop, fart and miscellaneous fluid jokes. Despite their horrific first date, Polly actually calls up Reuben for second go-round -- this time in an Indian restaurant where they happen to run into his parents Vivian and Irving (Lee, Dishy), and where Polly learns about Reuben's marriage-on-the-rocks. Not all of the above, and not even the fact that Reuben can't handle Polly's favorite hobby, salsa dancing, stops them from making love and then regularly seeing each other.
Though obstacles are de rigeur in this kind of comic formula, the ones applied in "Along Came Polly" have the effect of reminding viewers of how unrealistic the pairing of Reuben and Polly is. While it's plausible that Reuben would want to loosen up a bit to attract Polly (which he does, taking salsa lessons with Polly's handsome and gay dance buddy Javier, played by Jsu Garcia), there's never any reason why a gypsy-style gal would have the time of day for such an uptight nerd.
When the ultimate obstacle pops up -- Lisa having the gall to return and ask Reuben to have her back -- Hamburg's script clearly has no way out of its own situational cul-de-sac. Although the gags keep constantly rolling along, many wilt through sheer repetition (Sandy's horrific approach to playing basketball, Van Lew's crazed behavior) or through never quite realizing their full potential (a too-brief one with Stiller mishandling an art gallery sculpture is like a case of Jerry Lewis interruptus).
Stiller brings only a portion of the nervous and physical energy he essayed for "Parents" or "Zoolander" or, for that matter, the dreadful "Duplex," helmed by Danny DeVito (who, with his now-divorced Jersey Films partners Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher, produced "Polly" . Aniston does the job of playing a woman who's used to her own chaotic life, but she never looks like she's having fun in the role.
Supporting clowns, on the other hand, give the movie what kick it has. Though his character is tangential to almost anything in pic, Hoffman revels in playing a frustrated former teen movie star experiencing hard times. Baldwin and Azaria create full-blown characters out of what are basically glorified cameo spots, while Brown frolics as a bull in a china shop.
Pic looks and sounds as good as any recent Hollywood comedy, distinguished by Seamus McGarvey's crystalline lensing, Andrew Laws' well-observed design and a bouncy but not overly emphatic score by Theodore Shapiro
from the Hollywood Reporter-
by: Kirk Honeycutt
By Kirk Honeycutt
Bottom line: A predictable though occasionally amusing vehicle for Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston.
Opens
Friday, Jan. 16
"Along Came Polly" might be a lame, formulaic comedy, but it sets up entertaining sequences cleverly designed for the talents of three of its stars and has the good sense to get out of the way and let audiences enjoy their performances. Writer-director John Hamburg, who penned roles for Ben Stiller in the past, notably "Meet the Parents" and "Zoolander," again crafts a character -- a compulsive, vulnerable anal-retentive urbanite -- that is not just up Stiller's alley but up that alley, into the elevator and smack dab in the New York apartment where his Reuben Feffer lives. Similarly, Jennifer Aniston gets to play a free-spirited bohemian cheerfully out of touch with anything approaching normalcy and Hank Azaria is handed one of those foreign-accented nuts from which he can extract delirious comedy.
All this should be enough for favorable though perhaps modest boxoffice returns for Universal in mid-January. The film too often takes a clumsy approach to its comedy, overstating the obvious, running gags into the ground and stranding such talents as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Bryan Brown with annoying, one-note characters. Throw in running gags about gastro-intestinal distress and a blind ferret, and you've got a movie that sets its comedy bar too low for the talents involved.
Reuben's profession and lifestyle are interchangeable. A risk assessor for an insurance firm, he spends his life minimizing all risk. So when he marries Lisa (Debra Messing), a woman selected by him and his computer software as the perfect mate, why are you not surprised that on the first day of his honeymoon on St. Bart's he discovers Lisa with a French scuba instructor (Azaria) deep sea diving on dry land?
Returning to New York alone, jilted and rejected, Reuben gets dragged to an art opening by his impossibly gross best friend, has-been actor Sandy Lyle (Hoffman). Here, Reuben meets grade school friend Polly Prince (Aniston), a rolling stone who likes to live life on the edge. As quickly as you can say "opposites attract," these two wind up in the sack, and Hamburg sets his own virtually risk-free course to a happy ending through dates at restaurants that serve spicy food to upset Reuben's delicate stomach, a salsa club to display his physical ineptitude and the sudden return of Reuben's wife to disrupt the budding romance.
Sequences in which Stiller deals with his gastro-intestinal anguish, awkwardly learns salsa steps from smooth Javier (Jsu Garcia) and lectures Polly on the germs in a bar's communal nut bowl are classic Stiller. Aniston's take-life-as-it-comes waitress is funny without turning into a parody. Essentially, she is a woman who ascribes her romantic failures to lifestyle preferences rather than poor relationship choices.
The remaining characters fall just shy of grotesque buffoons. Even Hoffman, who has rapidly become the character actor of choice for many directors, cannot find anything funny in the loser who is Reuben's best friend. Why would a risk assessor risk terminal embarrassment by showing up anywhere with such a personality? Ditto for Baldwin as Reuben's crude boss, Messing as the blushing bride who turns into a whore at the drop of a beach bum's drawers and Michele Lee and Bob Dishy as Reuben's parents, caricatures that only pay off in the final scene. Brown, in his first Hollywood film in a decade, gets stuck with a Richard Branson-like, risk-taking entrepreneur who is an insurance company's worst nightmare.
In his second outing as a director -- he helmed the Sundance film "Safe Men" -- Hamburg surrounds himself with a veteran crew including cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, designer Andrew Laws, costumer Cindy Evans and composer Theodore Shapiro, all of whom help him to deliver a slick package.
I don't wanna be like you anymore
I don't wanna see your face at my door
And I'll never leave like you, that's for sure
I don't wanna be like you anymore, anymore, anymore
Take a trip, down memory lane
You will never wanna go again
Take your leave
Take your leave
I don't wanna sing at all -Travis "Paperclips"
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