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Fashionably Late Movie Reviews: Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.

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INTRODUCTION: Netflix uploaded the first Ace Ventura movie and I haven’t seen this movie since the early 2000’s at least. Recently the movie has been conversed about as being dated and transphobic, but is that really true? Does the movie even hold up enough to deserve scorn or praise?

PLOT: An estranged football player tries to get revenge on Dan Mariano.

CHARACTERS: I wouldn’t say they are shallow, but I think it isn’t overly obvious that these characters are probably mostly memorable due to likable actors playing them.

ACTING: All solid with the weakest being Tone-Loc but barley. His acting is substantially better than his rapping.

STYLE: Looks like every 90’s comedy. Its bright and alive, which adds levity to a plot, that even though it is a comedy, is pretty dark.

DIALOUGE: Fine, funny. Occasionally clever.

HUMOR: dumb humor, but it works. Just north of juvenilia, but south of George Carlin.

CONCLUSION: This movie still holds up and represents the older, higher budget comedies of the time, which died and were revived with movies like The Hangover. It isn’t transphobic, given that the heavy isn’t transgender. He is a deceptive person, hell-bent on revenge against Dan Marino, who he believed screwed him out of a Super Bowl win and dressed as a women to deceive everyone, which is not the same thing as being transgender. He has multiple comorbidities, transgender is not one of them. In the day and age of ego fragility, this movie is actually more poignant than ever, as it was the first to deal, albeit not with depth or sensitivity, the coddled mind set of the baby boomer generation, which is clearly genetic and not a cause of rearing.

This movie is laces out and a 3.5 out of 5.

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Fashionably Late Movie Reviews: Hot Tub Time Machine

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Introduction
Hot Tub Time Machine was a movie I wanted to review years ago, but never got a chance to because it didn’t seem to warrant a review. It wasn’t that type of movie and I don’t want to review something that was supposed to be fun with my uncouth, low brow, analysis. 10 years later and I said, fuck it, I’m going to re-watch it and give it my thoughts.

Synopsis
Lifelong buddies who are all stuck in a runt decide to spend some time at their own 20 something stomping grounds, due to the near fatal suicide attempt of one of them. When they get there, they quickly find out that they’re not the only ones who aged into a runt, but the lodge has as well. Drinking ensues and all of them end up back in the 80s due to a, you guessed it, hot tub time machine.

Characters
Nothing to write home about, they’re typical stock characters for this flick and barley distinguishable from one another. The actors are the only thing that makes the characters memorable.

Acting
Very good, nothing to complain about here.

Subtext
It is called Hot Tub Time Machine, where you expecting Shakespeare?

Conclusion
This is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, it has weak character development, and it breaks its own rules all the time. What is the point in establishing rules if you break them? It can’t even get the ages right of the characters. I was born in 86, this came out in February of 2010. I was 23 going on 24 and the age of the kid in the movie is 20. That would mean the movie would have to be based in 2006, not 2010 like the dial on the machine says. The movie ends with a upbeat, Back to the Future style ending that none of the characters deserve and once again breaks the rules of doing everything the exact same way they did when they originally, at one point including a bet about a John Elway pass that was stopped due to changing the past, but whatever. In spite of its flaws, the soundtrack is decent, the jokes are funny, it is well acted and ultimately it is a good ride. This was not going to win any awards, but ultimately, it was nothing but a good time and that is all that matters.

3.5 out of 5