REVIEW — “The Other Woman”

I don’t know what I really expected from a movie that is being compared to “Bridesmaids,” which I find to be extremely overrated, and not that funny. “The Other Woman” I can’t say disappointed me as I knew going into it that I wasn’t its target demographic. Despite the weak writing, only OK acting, terrible pacing, missed jokes and the awful Nicki Minaj (whatever THAT is) it appears as if the majority of the female audience LOVED it (my girlfriend excluded whose tolerance for cheap jokes and bad movies is as low as mine). 

Nothing about this will be remembered come one year from now, and it’s because of that I can say this had weak writing. If you can’t come up with something unique, can’t build characters people care about, and can’t leave us with a lasting impression then what’s the point? Tonally the story shifts, and can’t make up its mind if it wants to be a comedy, a romantic comedy, a drama, or a slapstick comedy, and because of this it does none of them particularly well (luckily it leaned more heavily on the comedy side). The pacing was also off as the flick starts slow, picks up steam in the middle, and then drags out the final act for way too long. 

The acting is about what I expected with Kate Upton actually surprising me a little bit. While she is far from being a quality actor she fits a certain type cast really well, and managed to deliver all her lines with a child like sense of wonder. That being said she is a lot like Brooklyn Decker in the sense that she is easy on the eyes, can deliver lines, but will never be given a part with any actual substance (unreliable). The rest of the cast was as expected with Leslie Mann and Cameron Diaz not delivering anything different than what they’ve given us before, but their characters were so poorly written out that really had to stretch their range from being sad to being uncharacteristically goofy and ridiculous. These uncomfortable scenes where the director likely said, “Act like you’re drunk for the first time in your life,” really took me out of the story. Nicki Minaj…I don’t even know what to really say. Half the time I couldn’t understand what she was saying, and the other half I wish I couldn’t. 

As far as the comedy goes it was hit or miss. For the first 30 minutes or so a lot of the jokes fall flat or just aren’t that funny, but towards the middle when they found their ‘zone’ things became a lot more humorous. Towards the end though, when things really started to drag out, everything became not funny, and I just wanted it to end. 

I acknowledge I am not the target audience for this, but at the same time that doesn’t mean audiences should accept lesser quality films JUST because it’s targeted at them. If guys blindly saw every film targeted to them then Uwe Boll (“Alone in the Dark” “In The Name of the King”) would be a mega-director by now. This film suffers from poor direction, bad editing (it’s painfully obvious where they quickly edited to make this PG-13), and weak writing, and it’s because of that it will never become a long remembered film. That being said it appears as if most women were getting a huge kick out of it (obviously some ‘woman’s only’ jokes I didn’t pick up on). This isn’t a date night flick, but rather something to go out with your gals to see (let the guys see “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” again). 2.5/5