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kelleyschorn · 6 years

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Kelley Reviews: Tag (Spoiler Edition)

*If you’ve already read my non spoiler review of this movie, skip to after the SPOILERS sign!

Quick word about the movie poster I chose for this review: It’s not my favorite one because this one kind of makes the movie look stupid but I went with image resolution over image content.

That being said, I was hooked on this movie since I first saw the trailer. The concept was original and it even had the added interest of it being based on a true story, “we’re not kidding”. So many things drew me to this movie from the plot to the fantastic trailer and then there’s the amazing cast. Tag is a comedy inspired by a real group of ten friends who have been playing the game of tag since high school. There is a great video on youtube that gives a more in depth look at the real story that you can find right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8C-VFbP-JQ

Because this reality acts as more of a writing prompt than a fully realized story, the writers for Tag exercised their own creative liberties when telling the story inspired by this amazing group of friends. There are hundreds of potential stories that could come from this prompt and I think the writers were smart to pare down the cast from ten to five so as to make a story that was more easily grasped. The movie centers on Ed Helms’ character, Hoagie, and his goal of finally tagging their impossible-to-catch friend Jerry, appropriately played by Hawkeye—I mean Jeremy Renner. Lately I’ve been a bit put off by comedies that rely heavily on jokes centering on sex and hoping that this will convince the audience that the crappy plot is worth overlooking for the crass punch lines. That being said, movies like Game Night and Tag have been a breath of fresh air in comparison. While both do have similar jokes throughout, they also have a good plot to stand on making room for situational humor to shine through.

While some critics disliked Tag, saying that it lacked the fun loving essence of the true tale it draws from, I would say that those critics missed the point of the movie. Without giving anything away, I would say that this movie exemplifies the importance of staying young, even when you get older. It does a great job of portraying the realities of keeping up with old friends and the fact that, while you may not see them as often as you did in high school, when you get together, it’s like no time has passed. Not only does Tag give you all of those warm and fuzzy things, but it also delivers them in a hilarious way! I saw this movie with my mom and sister and we were dying laughing throughout. The all-star cast definitely helped with this as well as the quality of the story itself.

The plot was kind of all over the place with some seemingly pointless subplots and some downright unbelievable moments but overall, I would say that this is a solid comedy and it stands out among others in its genre.

WHAT WORKED

The cast. What an awesome cast for a comedy am I right? I love Ed Helms because the Office (duh). I love Jake Johnson because I know him from New Girl. And I love Jeremy Renner because he is Hawkeye and he basically plays Hawkeye in this movie and I was all for it. Of course I also love Rashida Jones and I felt that she was a bit underused in this movie. If a less talented cast had been chosen, I would not have liked this movie nearly as much as I did. I especially feel that Ed Helms did an exceptional job seeing as how his role required more seriousness than his fellow cast members.

The plot. Yes there were issues with the plot, but what worked for me was the direction they chose to take the story in. Also the fact that they chose a direction in the first place. Like I said above, the original story acts as writing prompt and I think that that is pretty cool. This is what the writers came up with based on that prompt and I or you or anyone else would have come up with something completely different. They had to create a fully fleshed out story from that one tiny prompt! Writing is so cool! Ok nerd-out over. Anyways what worked for me about the plot were the more serious” themes of friendship and the importance of staying young, even when you get old. Despite it being a comedy, I found these themes, and the implementation of them touching. Also the twist at the end was unexpected and pulled off really well by Ed Helms. I didn’t believe it at first but once I knew it was real, it added so much depth and clarity to the story. Again, props to you Ed for pulling that character off so well. I also loved how they included a lot of the real life epic tags from the source inspiration seamlessly into the plot—the tagging at the funeral, the dressing up as an old lady.

The characters. The characters for me is where the comedic elements in this movie really shined. Such a wide range of characters for some epically hilarious interactions. I loved Hoagie signing up to be a janitor despite his “PHD in veterinary science and a flourishing practice” (I’m paraphrasing but you get it). Randy and all of his weed jokes were great and the scene where he’s smoking in the basement with his friends reminded me of That 70’s Show. Jerry was made even more funny to me because he was played by Jeremy Renner. I could totally see Hawkeye being all about this and being this hardcore in the Marvel Universe. (I know I said the nerd moment was over but I lied—sorry!) Hannibal Buress had some funny moments as Sable but some of them fell flat. I felt like his character lacked some of the cohesion the other’s had, like they couldn’t really decide what comedic angle they wanted to go with him so with his tragic back story some of the jokes just felt a bit awkward.

The funny. A lot of the jokes came from the absurdity of their situation and I loved that! They didn’t have to rely heavily on cheap sexual jokes (the adult version of fart jokes) to be funny. The premise and the characters themselves created hilarious scenarios for the viewer’s entertainment.

Small highlight to the parts where they show the gang as kids and how this game started and then it shows them as adults driving next to those kids as a transition—that part was genius!

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

The plot. Ok so here’s my issue, some of these subplots just didn’t really add anything to the movie for me. The Randy Vs. Callahan romance subplot. This was unnecessary. I do love Rashida Jones but this did not add anything to main plot other than (maybe) some more characterization of the characters. I don’t think it was needed and I don’t think it added anything significant to the plot other than a distraction for those characters that causes them to miss Jerry and that could have been done by a lot of other things, (Randy could have gotten too high, Callahan could have been distracted by flirting with the reporter). The other subplot that I have some issues with is the reporter. She was literally only there as an interpreter for the audience so that we would know what was going on. She never really advances the plot and doesn’t ever cause any sort of drama with the group. She’s static and could have been used better. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a clever way to clue the audience in, but I think they could have paired her with Callahan as a romantic interest (I shipped it) to at least give her some sort of importance. Or as a more extreme fix, I would have taken her out altogether and had one of the guys, maybe Hoagie, narrate and explain various things throughout—though I’m more in favor of the love interest thing because she did bring some comedic elements of just not knowing what’s going on.

The scene at the wedding shower. Specifically the giant traps and the extremes Jerry went through to mess with his friends took me out of the story a bit. I get that it was supposed to funny how absolutely ridiculously into the game these grown men were but some of the jerry stunts pushed it a bit too far for me.

The characters. I already explained my issues with Sable and the reporter but the other characters that didn’t quite work for me were Cheryl (Rashida) and Hoagie’s mom. Hoagie’s mom felt like a lazy character to me. Like the writer’s forgot about her until the end and were like, oh wait, how can we make her funny? Let’s just make her into one of her son’s friends. I thought maybe it would have been funnier to have her be one of those completely unaware types, like all this stuff is happening around her and whenever she finally looks around, it’s all gone. And then Cheryl, her plotline was doomed from the start but as far as that subplot goes, what smart woman in her right mind chooses the unemployed broke pothead living with his dad over smart successful Callahan in a choice between two exes?? Ok rant over. That character had no real purpose in the story, I say cut her out.

While I did have all those issues, I did thoroughly enjoy this movie. I laughed a lot and was fully entertained. I would highly recommend this movie it was a fun one! Unfortunately I do not have a ticket stub to show for this movie because the theater I went to screwed me over! I’m just not going to go to that theater anymore, It’s not worth losing my precious ticket stubs!

Let me know what you think of this review and what you thought of Tag! If you liked this review please share it! Stay tuned for the next one: The Incredibles 2!

#tag #tag movie #ed helms #rashida jones #Hannibal Buress #randy johnson #jeremy renner #jon hamm #Tag movie review #movie review

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