Brandon at Random Reviews

For some reason, I’ve never been a huge laugher. Like I find things funny, but I don’t crack up about it typically. I think it might have to do with the fact that I am maybe self-conscious about my laugh or maybe I feel like laughing isn’t cool when I do it. I can’t remember the last time I genuinely laughed. It’s certainly not a typical thing. I usually just maybe breathe a little harder through my nose and possibly grin like an idiot instead. I don’t know, I just find it odd. Like what’s wrong with me?

Anyway, for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Rachel McAdams for both deep acting talent reasons and shallow good lookin’ reasons! Jason Bateman won me over easily with his straight man Michael Bluth on the cult comedy show Arrested Development. Then we’ve got that guy who played Winston on New Girl, the dude from Early Edition, Dexter, and the rest!

This one is about a couple whose innocent game night turns into pure mayhem! You know what, I don’t like using exclamation points. They’re not my sort of thing. I gave it a shot this time to try it out, but I don’t feel the excitement coming through on my end so I’m gonna stop. I realize this is a literal Seinfeld bit, but whatevs. Bateman and McAdams work great together as a married couple who are both very competitive, strategic, and good at “game night” (hey, that’s the name of the movie) style games with their fun and interesting group of friends. We get a small chunk of time dedicated to the star couple getting married, then having trouble conceiving a child early on and then Bateman gets antsy about a visit from his brother (Early Edition guy, apparently he goes by Kyle Chandler for short) because of a sort of sibling rivalry thing going on.

All hell breaks loose when the brother hosts game night at the place where he’s staying and I’ll leave it at that. We get some great gags and physical comedy from all of the major players here and I found myself genuinely enjoying it. Not laughing audibly of course, but heightened enjoyment was had by this movie viewer.

This one was a surprise hit at this Griffes household. I mean, I saw that there were people in it I liked/loved, but the ratings were putting it right in Mediocracyville as I tried to decide to take the plunge. I’m glad I risked it. It is not on a major streaming service (unless you count the TNT, Spectrum, or TruTV apps), but you can pay to rent or purchase it digitally on all major services or buy it physically like some kind of old-timey so-and-so. I dunno, take a chance. I liked it quite a bit. Enjoy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2