REVIEW: Cedar Rapids

Ed Helms plays a strange version of Andy Bernard as his nice-guy-puppy-dog-eyes routine gets a bit old ...


This is a strange mix of director Arteta's usual melancholia drowned in existentialist comedy (The Good Girl, Youth In Revolt) with the upbeat frat-pack style type of humour. It makes for a slightly unsettling and uncomfortable viewing experience that leaves you wondering what you've just watched.

The story goes that Ed Helms' character Tim is a small-town guy selling insurance taking his first trip to an insurance do at Cedar Rapids. It soon becomes a tale of self-discovery as he starts learning to let loose and have a grander view of the world. This is done with the help of some friends along the way, namely John C Reilly doing his best Will Ferrell impression (that seems to be his idol after all), The Wire's Isiah Whitlock Jr (who actually references and even quotes The Wire), and lesbian Anne Heche who I swear hasn't done anything for ages. Tim is in love with his ex-school teacher that he's shagging (a remarkably good looking Sigourney Weaver) in a rather Oedipal way but his backward, conservative, rather sweet view of the world becomes corrupted when he loses his innocence in different, humorous ways.

Ed Helms is at his best here when he's let loose but the real star is Reilly who is clearly enjoying his role as a loud mouth, egotistical, brash salesman who doesn't care what people think of him. Along the way he has to win some award and Tim's fragile view of the world is shattered, there's some type of redemption here and salvation, but overall it becomes a strange sequence of events about people I neither care about nor believe exist. Tim's 'Aw shucks' naivety becomes grating and the jokes are few and far between. However, there are some great moments and memorable quotes and the idea of Cedar Rapids as some kind of Shangri La or, in more obvious terms, the city of Sodom in a more toned down fashion, is quite humorous.

It's rather slow with a few laugh out loud moments but it cannot save it from the rather drab, confusing and partially irritating feel of it all. Am I supposed to be grossed out? Am I supposed to be moved? Am I supposed to laugh here? A good ninety minutes where I wasn't bored, but not enough here that gets deep enough, or gets me laughing enough to justify a higher mark. Average at best.

Rating: 6/10

NEWS: The Hangover 2 Trailer

Have a look at this and tell me what you think?

Maybe it's just me but I watched this and thought it looks really, really shit. Firstly, it looks exactly the same as the first one in that it's about a marriage again (it didn't have to be another marriage guys) and some shots are even exactly the same (the drinking for example). Why bring back the Chinese guy from the first one? They've even taken an element they bring to kid sequels et al where when they get bored, they get a monkey in. How annoying that is going to be I can't even begin to tell you.

Zach with a bald head and Ed Helms with a tattoo? Not original but ok. Even Stu, the guy they had to find in the first one, clearly takes a back seat probably because he's the most wooden thing about it. The first Hangover was walking the line between gross-out R rated actually funny comedy and kiddie-like stunts that deserve to be on a Nickelodeon film - however it pulled it off successfully. This one seems to be tipping towards the kid element again and I can't help but think it's going to be an absolute pile of shit. Sorry!

There's nothing in the entire trailer that gives me hope, so let's see once the initial hysteria dies down what people will really think. How about you guys? Am I wrong?