'Corporate Animals' Trailer: Demi Moore And Ed Helms Lead A Workplace Dark Comedy From 'The Overnight' Director

Patrick Brice's Corporate Animals premiered at Sundance earlier this year, and despite a cast led by Ed Helms, Demi Moore in a rare role, Deadpool 2's Karan Soni, and Booksmart's Jessica Williams, it didn't leave with a lot of buzz. Brice's latest is a workplace dark comedy, which seems to be the chosen genre for workplace movies, and like Brice's prior movies Creep and The Overnight, what starts out innocent eventually descends into chaos.

Seriously, why is it that workplace comedies always have to do with team-building exercises that turn violent? Corporate Animals follows the same pattern, with Moore playing a delusional CEO at a startup who takes her downtrodden team on a caving retreat that turns disastrous. Stranded, they quickly run out of food and...well, there may be some new positions opening up at the office.

The trailer doesn't inspire a ton of confidence because I feel like this has been done to death already. But it's really hard to get beyond that cast and Brice's stellar track record. I've learned not to trust everything I hear at Sundance and this is one that will definitely be given a chance.

SYNOPSIS: Lucy (Demi Moore) is the delusional CEO of a struggling startup aimed at millennials. In her infinite wisdom, Lucy leads her staff, including her long-suffering assistants Jess (Jessica Williams) and Freddie (Karan Soni), on a team-building retreat in the caves of New Mexico led by an overeager guide (Ed Helms). When disaster strikes and the food runs out, mandatory office bonding becomes a lot more… appetizing.


Corporate Animals hits theaters and VOD on September 20th.

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Netflix Lines Up Will Ferrell, Taraji P. Henson, And Ed Helms For New Comedy Films

Netflix is coming off their biggest awards season yet with the multiple Oscars earned by Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, and while they have made at least one high-profile enemy in their march to success, it isn't stopping them from scoring big names for future projects. Adam Sandler may have the market cornered on the streamer's major comedy output, it could be overshadowed by the arrival of Will Ferrell, Taraji P. Henson, and Ed Helms who have two comedies on the way.

First up, Ferrell is joining with Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin for Eurovision. This is a project that was actually revealed last year, but it's the addition of Dobkin that takes it to the next step. The film is based on the international Eurovision Song Contest, a singing competition that has aired around the world since 1956 and featured such hit-makers as Celine Dion and ABBA. Ferrell will star, produce, and co-write the script with Casa de mi Padre's Andrew Steele. [Variety]

Next, Taraji P. Henson and Ed Helms will star in Coffee & Kareem, which Helms will also produce. Directed by Michael Dowse (Take Me Home Tonight), the story by Shane McCarthy follows  "a Detroit cop who reluctantly teams with his girlfriend’s 11-year-old son to clear his name and take down the city’s most ruthless criminal." The Golden Globe-winning Empire star was most recently seen in the comedy What Men Want, and has civil rights drama The Best of Enemies next month. Helms was part of last year's ensemble comedy, Tag, and was at Sundance as part of the premiering dark comedy Political Animals. [Deadline]

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Review: 'Tag', Jeremy Renner Makes Jon Hamm Look Foolish In One Of The Year's Best Comedies

If there can be professional kickball leagues out there keeping us adults from growing up too much, surely there can be a movement for the game of tag. At least I hope that's what is inspired by the falling-down hilarious comedy Tag, a too-goofy-to-be-believed gem about a bunch of friends who have been playing the same game of tag for thirty years. Nowhere is safe; funerals, wedding, hospital rooms, all are fair game. While based on a true story, the movie is little more than an excuse to watch Jon Hamm, Ed Helms, Hannibal Buress, and Jake Johnson crash and burn repeatedly in an attempt to lay a hand on Jeremy Renner. And you know what? If all you get out of it is laughing at their many pratfalls, that will be enough to make this a game worth playing.

As if that cast isn't good enough, there is at least one more who hasn't gotten much due in the trailers: Isla Fisher. The crimson-haired actress steals nearly every scene from her male counterparts, and she isn't even technically part of the game, just the all-too-aggressive wife of Hoagie (Ed Helms) who kicks things off by leaving his successful veterinarian practice so to apply for a menial custodian job. Why? Because it gets him closer to Bob (Hamm), CEO of a "Fortune 800" insurance company, so he can tag him. Hoagie disrupts Bob's interview with Wall Street Journal reporter Rebecca (Annabelle Wallis), who decides to chuck her boring corporate puff piece for the real story of these grown men still engaged in a kid's game.

Hoagie and Bob recruit their far-out stoner pal Chilli (Johnson), or should we say they hunt him down while he scrambles like a spooked deer, afraid of being tagged "It". After he suffers an epic tumble they bust in on the therapy session of their paranoid pal Kevin (Buress), and together the foursome make this the year they vow to tag Jerry (Renner), a sort-of tag zen master who has never been "it" in all of their years of playing. With Jerry on the verge of getting married to bridezilla Susan (Leslie Bibb), who is no fan of their eternal game of tag, they figure now is the best and last shot they may have to finally beat him.

The problem is that Jerry is on some whole other shit. If they're playing checkers, Jerry is playing 3-D chess. Their attempts to tag him are futile, like Neo when he first tried to punch Morpheus. He bobs, weaves, zigs, zags, and occasionally lays elaborate traps to avoid them. Director Jeff Tomsic, best known for being at the helm of various comedy specials, uses slow motion and other camera tricks to exaggerate their embarrassing efforts. The best is a chest cam to fully capture Chilli's drug-induced mania while flailing miserably to tag Jerry.

Most obsessed to win is poor, awkward Hoagie who has an extra incentive this year and the competitive rage of his wife (Fisher) to fuel him. Helms is playing the character he's been reliably counted on to play for years, while Hamm's macho cool only makes it funnier as Renner makes him look foolish. Meanwhile, the best lines are reserved for the screaming Fisher and Buress as her polar opposite. While she pops a ginger gasket at Jerry's constant escapes, it's Buress who calmly observes how absurd the whole thing is.

Renner stays passively above the fray compared to the wild antics of his co-stars, which is interesting because he famously busted up both arms while shooting. He managed to stay injury free during those Avengers movies but in Tag he comes up lame, but you'll never be able to tell that his arms are actually CGI in some places. A love triangle romance that includes Rashida Jones as a former flame to Hamm and Johnson's characters doesn't amount to much and feels tacked on, so does a hospital bed revelation that delivers a somber gut punch to the comic antics. The film works best when it avoids too much sentimentality, but the camaraderie among the guys is so tight you won't mind their frequently-recited message,  “We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”

Tag is a movie about best friends doing whatever it takes to stay in one another's lives. Of course it's incredibly silly but also has a surprising amount of heart, and you'll think of your own friends and how important they are, as long as they're "it" and not you.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5



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Review: 'Chappaquiddick', Ted Kennedy's Legacy Gets Battered And Bruised

"I'm not going to be President", a somber Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) tells his overlooked friend/cousin Joe Gargan (Ed Helms) minutes after he escaped drowning in a car that had tumbled off of a bridge in the New England island of Chappaquiddick. Little did he know how accurate he would be. If his escape had been a harrowing tale of survival then maybe that could be spun into political gold, but instead the incident, which saw Kennedy's loyal aide Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) die in those frigid waters, would become a scandal that dogged his career to the end.

John Curran's film Chappaquiddick isn't so much about the crash, those details are common knowledge and have been for decades. It's a gripping and timely tale about the concoction of the story around the scandal, and the efforts by Kennedy, using the currency of his family legacy and a distracted public, to keep his reputation intact. This is a film about power, and how being born with the right name can be enough to reshape reality.

In the summer of '69 Ted Kennedy is still in the earliest stages of his political career, but he's already feeling the weight of his fallen brothers, Joe, President John F. Kennedy, and Bobby who would die just a year earlier. Ted's the public face of the family now and is expected make a move for the White House , but at this point he's undecided on a future path, despite the pressure put on him by his father (Bruce Dern). That weekend he's hosting a "reunion" of loyal Kennedy staffers known as the "Boiler Room Girls", all lovely single women of 28-years-old or younger, at an event in which the only other attendees are grabby married men, most of them Kennedys or Kennedy acolytes. Mary Jo is one of those campaign staffers and she was very close to Ted, some say too close, which only complicated matters when their late night drive ended up in tragedy. Once it happens and Ted is slow to alert the police, perhaps at the cost of Mary Jo's life, the spin machine moves into place. But not before Ted, who is wholly unsuited to political maneuvering at this point, makes a number of bone-headed errors that must be cleaned up.

Curran gets a lot of material to work with here, and along with screenwriters Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan he makes the most of it. While the actual direction of the film is purely functional, the parallels drawn to today and Clarke's powerful performance are what make this such an engrossing story. I daresay Clarke is considerably more charismatic than Ted Kennedy was back then. It's tough to reconcile the shifty Ted Kennedy of 1969 with the stoic champion of the working class that he would be throughout his senatorial career, but you have to understand going in that this is not a film meant to bolster his reputation. It leaves him pretty scarred up, as Ted continually puts his own concerns ahead of any true justice for Mary Jo. Even his decision to reveal that it was him behind the wheel is a calculated one meant to gain sympathy, although he persists in claims that he will always follow his "true north" and do what's right. All women are given short shrift, not just Mary Jo. Olivia Thirlby plays Mary Jo's best friend Rachel Schiff, but she's barely given much to do other than be another of Kennedy's loyalists. Disappointing as the portrayal of women may be, it's a calculation that fits with the time and the all-male group of power players involved.

It's also interesting the depiction of the news cycle and how easily it could be manipulated. While today we both love and lament the speed which stories are broken, there was no Internet back then. There weren't dozens of news outlets picking apart every facet of the event. If Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick were to have happened within a year or two before his death in 2009, his career would have been over that day. But in 1969 there was room to maneuver and plot out a strategy. In this case, Ted and his spin doctors were helped by the Apollo moon landing and the country's fascination with space exploration. But mostly we see the effect that the name Kennedy has in swaying public perception and marshalling defenders. It's an early indicator of how the names Bush, Clinton, and Obama can steer opinion in these hyper-partisan times. Suffice it to say, if he were Ted Johnson and not Ted Kennedy he would have been toast. Instead he gets off with a slap on the writst, and goes on to have one of the longest senatorial careers in U.S. history, thus proving that his rewriting of history to paint himself as a victim worked.

So again, Chappaquiddick is not hero worship of the Kennedys like so many other movies made about the most famous family in political history. In the end, Ted selfishly gives up on his "true north", his belief in what's right, in order to do what's convenient. Sounds like your standard everyday politician, doesn't it? We hate those, don't we?  Chappaquiddick presents the Kennedys in a vastly different light than we're accustomed to seeing, and probably won't see again on the big screen for a long time.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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'Tag' Trailer: Jon Hamm And Ed Helms Can't Touch Jeremy Renner

So Jeremy Renner may not be getting any love from the folks at Marvel right now, but in the new comedy Tag he is the man. The film is loosely based on the true story of a group of friends from Spokane who have been playing the same game of tag for over 20 years, and if you look up some of their antics you'll see that they've pulled some crazy stunts to keep the game going, and it looks like a bunch of them have found their way into the movie.

Renner's gaming buddies include Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Ed Helms, and Isla Fisher, with Rashida Jones, Annabelle Wallis, and Brian Dennehy co-starring. It looks like Renner's character has gone 30 years without ever being "It", and his boys are going to make sure that changes. There's one scene in this trailer that made me snort water and it's when Helms is tagged while grieving at a funeral, and y'know what, it seems like that particular moment was ripped from reality.

Directed by Jeff Tomsic, Tag opens June 15th.

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'Chappaquiddick' Trailer: Ted Kennedy Tries To Survive A Political Scandal

Political scandals are a daily reality we have to live with thanks to the current occupants of the White House, so it'll be interesting to see if audiences show up for a movie about one that impacted a politician people actually liked. Chappaquiddick stars Jason Clarke as Senator Ted Kennedy, who in 1969 left a late night party and drove off a one-lane bridge right into the channel. While he survived, his companion,  young campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne, wasn't so fortunate.

John Curran (Tracks) directs the film which attempts to unveil the truth of what happened that tragic evening. In the days that followed, Kennedy would face scrutiny for waiting more than 10 hours before reporting the accident, and then stonewalling the police investigation at every turn. Kate Mara plays Kopechne, with Ed Helms, Jim Gaffigan, Taylor Nichols, Olivia Thirlby, Clancy Brown, and Bruce Dern co-starring as various Kennedy confidantes who helped keep him out of too much trouble.

Chappaquiddick opens April 6th.

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Review: 'The Clapper' Starring Ed Helms, Amanda Seyfried, And Tracy Morgan

The Clapper is about a man named Eddie Krumble (Ed Helms) who has a job as an infomercial audience member. He’s basically paid to clap, look interested, laugh and more on these things. Pretty down on his luck, things turn sideways with unexpected and wanted fame when he becomes the focus of an ongoing joke on a popular late night talk show. The rest of the movie is just him dealing with how this turns his life upside down with no real benefits. So at this point, it leaves one wondering what’s this movie about? Is it saying fame is bad and that Hollywood is inherently evil to everyday working Americans?

It’s questioned to be asked by how it portrays the characters in this film. Eddie and his friend Chris (Tracy Morgan) seem pretty naive and not fast on the uptake to things in society. It feels like they are constantly out of their depth in the world the whole time in the story. The same with Amanda Seyfried’s Judy, a young woman who Eddie falls in love with who works at the gas station he shops at. A young woman that doesn’t have TV or watches it, while not a bad thing or weird, it's just in the way she reacts to things going on that is perplexing. How don't they understand the way showbiz works when they all live in LA close to the studios?  The whole film makes the showbiz people look very manipulative or cruel and while that isn’t new in stories it does make me wonder what the point is in the two very different portrayals of these characters. Is Eddie supposed to be good and a hero we empathize with just because he doesn’t understand what’s going on and how his action contribute to problems? Are we supposed to just hate the late night show producers and host because while they are manipulating Eddie and Chris for ratings that Eddie and Chris don’t ever really think about what’s going on?

These things ran through my mind constantly at times overtaking what I was watching on screen. The cinematography wasn’t amazing or notable in the slightest. The film did have some funny jokes thanks to the charisma of Ed Helms and Tracy Morgan. They were able to make some pretty questionable jokes work with just their expressions and having an air of honesty to the performances. They weren’t playing these roles condescendingly but with a care to these people. Ed Helms and Amanda Seyfried were okay together but it’s getting tired to see a man of that age in a relationship with a woman that much younger again. The film was better when just focusing on that relationship more than the stuff with his interactions with the late night show. The Clapper is a comedy that doesn’t totally know what it wants to be, a commentary on fame and class or a romantic comedy. What we end up with is something that never really does both well and ends up hampering each theme. 

Rating: 3 out of 5

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'Chappaquiddick' Trailer: Jason Clarke Is A Scandal-Plagued Ted Kennedy

As scandal shakes the political foundations in the wake of the #metoo movement, it's important to remember that the halls of power have always been subject to such controversies. But the landscape was very different decades ago, and what Senator Ted Kennedy was able to get away with at Chappaquiddick he would most assuredly be drummed out of office for today. And that makes the new film by John Curran (The Painted Veil) all the more timely, for showing us how far things have progressed.

Chappaquiddick stars Jason Clarke as Kennedy, a member of the great political dynasty, who sees his career tarnished one night in 1969 when a late night drive with aide Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) ends with his car in the river and her dead. Kennedy's actions in the immediate aftermath, such as refusing to notify the police and employing his family's vast PR resources to deflect attention, would only cast greater suspicion and end any Presidential ambitions. Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan, Olivia Thirlby, and Clancy Brown co-star.

The film debuted at TIFF but I don't recall it really standing out from the crowd. With so many political dramas arriving recently it may have a tough time.  Plus don't we get enough scandal from the White House every single day in the news? Chappaquiddick opens April 6th 2018.

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'The Clapper' Trailer: Ed Helms Gets Famous For Being Nobody

There was a time when Dito Montiel looked like an up and coming director. He had just directed the indie darling A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which helped introduce the world to Shia LaBeouf and Channing Tatum. Then...well, it's been a string of star-studded failures. Seriously, he's worked with everyone from Dwayne Johnson to Robin Williams in his final screen role. But movies like Empire State, The Son of No One, Man Down, Boulevard, and Fighting (which I kinda like, f'real) failed to make any noise. And now Montiel is back with The Clapper, a romance with a solid cast, an intriguing premise, and probably nobody will see it.

Ed Helms stars as a regular dude who becomes an instant celebrity over his job as a seat filler for late night infomercials. But his newfound fame threatens to destroy everything, including the relationship he's building with a gas station cashier played by Amanda Seyfried.

That's...kinda interesting, right? And it doesn't look bad, just kinda bland and one-note, which is how most of Montiel's movies play.  The Clapper hits VOD on January 26th 2018 and co-stars Tracy Morgan, Leah Remini, Adam Levine, and Brenda Vaccaro.

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'Father Figures' Trailer: Ed Helms & Owens Wilson Need A Dad In Their Lives

Remember that really terrible crime comedy Masterminds that Owen Wilson was in last year? Something about his latest film, Father Figures, tells me this will be just as forgettable. Maybe it's that they both had trouble settling on a title (Father Figures was originally titled Bastards, can't see why they changed it!). Maybe it's the trouble Warner Bros. has had figuring out a suitable release date. It was originally supposed to open back in January before it got pulled from the schedule altogether.

Maybe it's that it also doesn't look very funny.

Wilson stars alongside Ed Helms as siblings who learn their father had not died like their mother told them, and set off on a road trip to find him. Ugh. The surrounding cast could be fun, though, with Glenn Close as their mom, and J.K. Simmons, Bill Irwin, Terry Bradshaw, and Harry Shearer as potential daddies. Katie Aselton, Ving Rhames, June Squibb, and Katt Williams co-star, as well. Maybe they'll help elevate this further than the trailer suggests. I'm sure some multiplex will offer a Daddy's Home 2/Father Figures double-feature.

Directed by Lawrence Sher, Father Figures opens December 22nd.

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Review: Lake Bell's 'I Do...Until I Don't' Isn't Worthy Of Commitment

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Lake Bell Is Back In First Trailer For Rom-Com 'I Do...Until I Don't'

Lake Bell set a pretty high bar for herself with her directorial debut, the voice-over comedy In a World..., but it's taken a long time for her follow-up. Now she's back behind the camera for another indie comedy, I Do...Until I Don't, and it looks like something she shot over a weekend.

Bell directs and stars alongside Ed Helms, Paul Reiser, Mary Steenburgen, Amber Heard, Wyatt Cenac, Dolly Wells, and Chace Crawford in a comedy about married couples whose relationships are on the rocks. This thing has a number of red flags, not the least of which is that it looks like such a typical indie about marriage. Bell is certainly capable of more than this. I mean, the trailer starts off with a joke about ovulation and never really recovers. Here's the synopsis:

In Vero Beach, Florida, a trio of couples at various points in their relationships become the subjects of a film about marriage being an antiquated idea that needs a reboot: Why not turn marriage into a seven-year deal with an option to renew?

For Alice and Noah (Lake Bell, Ed Helms), more than a hint of boredom is setting in as they approach their first decade together and the prospect of parenthood. Meanwhile, Alice’s funky sister Fanny (Amber Heard) is sure her “open marriage” to Zander (Wyatt Cenac) is the key to their free-spirited happiness. And then there’s Cybil and Harvey (Mary Steenburgen, Paul Reiser), a pair of empty-nesters wondering what the next stage will be.

As the manipulative filmmaker (Dolly Wells) attempts to show how marriage is outmoded, the couples she interviews discover the “do’s” and “don’t’s” in their own relationships.

Should we also be concerned that it's coming out of nowhere with zero festival buildup? The indie scene is Bell's wheelhouse, and yet this is going straight theatrical run beginning September 1st.

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Review: 'Captain Underpants' Starring Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, & Nick Kroll

When the trailer for this first came out I was like huh? What? This has a movie now? Captain Underpants got this big that it has a movie – well I’ll be. Going into this fully blind on the concept I was pretty delighted by just how much I liked this thing. It’s cool how this kind of comic book but not comic book children’s book about a man with a cape and underwear briefs on can become such a major media force but hey, they added a new member to the fan club.

So, Captain Underpants is the story of George and Harold, two elementary school kids who are best friends who love having a good laugh and making their own comic books, especially their best creation Captain Underpants. The thing is they have one foe, Principal Krupp who hates fun, art and kids having laughs. George and Harold are always pulling pranks and nothing more in the world than splitting up these two kids to destroy their friendship. With nothing else to lose George and Harold end up hypnotizing Krupp into thinking he’s their superhero character Captain Underpants. From there the hijinks and jokes just add up along with an actual bad guy by the name of Professor Poopypants. This whole movie is full of what is basically kid humor. Everything is so bright and colorful with great round shapes full volume and bounce. Being only a little cognizant of the children books you totally get the feeling captured by the art direction done in this movie.

The movie is very well paced and not slow moving at all. It gets you through each point and has you care about each of the main characters. You really feel the desperation of George and Harold as they feel that if they aren’t in the same class their friendship is lost. It’s perfect in a completely little kid way. They also do well and show you that Krupp is a complete human being and to be honest all the adults are handled well but not too much to have a bunch of adult like jokes in there. The movie also some great visuals like a giant robot mecha toilet that shoots giant rolls of toilet paper at houses. Also, all the voice actors do a great job and not overpowering. It’s kind of weird just how well Kevin Hart is at this with such a recognizable voice.

With all the choices in the theaters right now you’ll be fine if you pick this movie or have to go to this if your first choice is sold out. This was a great kids movie that can totally work as a franchise and actually makes even this adult want to delve into the books.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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'Tag' Movie Tags Jeremy Renner; Jeffrey Dean Morgan Goes On A 'Rampage'; Demian Bichir Joins 'The Nun'

Who's got time for Mission: Impossible when you can play a game of Tag? Jeremy Renner has joined Ed Helms in the comedy which tells the true story of  "a group of friends who have been playing a no-holds-barred version of the children’s game tag for the last 30 years.” Hannibal Buress is also joining the cast of the Jeff Tomsic-directed film. [Variety]

Jeffrey Dean Morgan, fresh off terrorizing everybody as Negan in The Walking Dead, has joined Dwayne Johnson in Rampage. The film is based on the hit '80s coin-op video game about a city combating a giant lizard, ape, and werewolf. Morgan plays Agent Russell, who works for a government agency known as OGA. This'll be a reunion between Morgan and co-star Malin Akerman who last worked together on Watchmen. Joe Manganiello, Marley Shelton, Jake Lacy, PJ Byrne, Jack Quaid, Matt Gerald and Breanne Hill also star in the film which will be directed by Brad Peyton and open on April 20th 2018.

The Nun, the upcoming spinoff from The Conjuring 2, will see Demian Bichir terrorized by the demonic sister. Bichir will “play a priest named Father Burke who is dispatched by Rome to investigate a mysterious death of a nun.” Something tells me he won't like what he finds there and may never return. Corin Hardy (The Hallow) is directing for release on July 13th 2018.  Bichir will be seen next month in Alien: Covenant and Lowriders.

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First Trailer For 'Captain Underpants' Reveals A Hero In Big Drawers

Forget Superman. Forget Batman. Who needs Iron Man when you have Captain Underpants!!?!  The adaptation of Dav Pilkey's best-selling family novels is here, and so is its hero and his very big, very white, underwear. Check out the new trailer if you're dying to check 'em out.

Penned by Nicholas Stoller, who recently had a successful animated flick in Storks, and directed by David Soren (Turbo), the film features the voices of Kevin Hart, Get Out director Jordan Peele, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll, Kristen Schaal, Thomas Middleditch, and more. Captain Underpants is the unfortunate monicker of a school principal who has been hypnotized by two scheming students into becoming the dim-witted hero.

Captain Underpants hits theaters on June 2nd, and if it's a hit expect another of the eleven books to be adapted quickly.

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Review: 'Kevin Hart: What Now?'

So I’m sitting here wondering how do you really sit and review a stand-up comedy concert film? Like does editing and cinematography really matters here? Is that a standard to even think about? There really isn’t a plot because like come on its stand up. I think first things first Kevin Hart is right now and has been for a few years THE most visible and mass popular stand-up comedian we have. You can counter with Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari or Amy Schumer but Amy isn’t at that level yet, Aziz kind of has a certain niche in that "lovelorn let’s explore romance and ball out" lane and Louie is like the artisan of comedy. Kevin is the one that people instantly gets, can be annoying and you worry about him over saturating himself but somehow he’s just likable enough to keep his hustle going. Which brings us to his newest concert film What Now? It’s been a few years since his last one, Let Me Explain, and here his goal is to take it to another level. Like the last film he bookends his movie with fictional story on a problem on him getting to his concert.

Hart has chosen to parody the James Bond film Casino Royale. Here in this short little movie you have Kevin Hart as a super spy with Bond girl Halle Berry as he tries to play in a super-secret poker game to win all the money for his global comedy tour. Here they do a great job of sending up the Bond movie tropes with what you know of Hart’s humor and persona. Much of this is helped by great cameos in this scene that I won’t spoil for you. From there on the movie is the stand-up performance. Here is more of  the bread and butter of Hart's life – being a husband and father and his observations as such. Of course there is more of his impersonation of his father, and it still brings in laughs. His jokes are as solid as ever but I say that as a person that always finds his jokes funny. Kevin Hart has never been subversively funny like Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock but he’s never squeaky clean or one-note like Larry the Cable Guy, or even I’d say at this point a D.L. Hughley (preparing for the possible clap back one day).

Kevin Hart: What Now? Is a solid release from a very consistent performer that doesn’t sway too far from what got him where he is now. You feel the energy on screen and in his stage presence as usual. The audience I saw it with was laughing the whole time and enjoyed themselves. Not much you can ask for when seeing a movie in the theater. Right now Kevin Hart is the comedy king in theaters and I don’t think anyone can knock him off until he stops doing it. What Now is some I can see myself watching again and again. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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