(I am WAY too generous with my rating but I really want to encourage Spanish cinema as much as possible. With that said, my review is honest and constructive.)
This film should have been a big hit along the scale of Ocho Apellidos Vascos which wasn't very good either but at least it was a bit fresher while this newer movie mostly just imitated that monster hit. This movie began with a much better premise but wasted that by devolving immediately into slapstick. Here are a few of my thoughts.
A note to writers of Spanish romantic comedies: if you have an idea for two people meeting by literally running into each other have a nap and then think of something different. That sort of thing went out with I Love Lucy in the 1950s.
A note to writers of Spanish comedy: if you have an idea for a gag that involves someone falling down go take a nap and then come up with another idea. That sort of thing went out with silent movies. That also goes for pushing someone's face in a bowl of cereal, or mocking someone incapable of learning the host language, or pointing out only the most obvious and tired clichés of the differences between Spanish and German cultures (Germany is cold with bad food hilarious), lying about your job situation (also very I Love Lucy—a show that I hated as a kid), and fart jokes those are always funny I'm being serious. Fart jokes are OK by me.
Half-way through the film I was beginning to wonder if they would portray a single German person in a mildly favorable light. And Hitler jokes? Are you kidding me? Is that all the writers know about this country? They barely mentioned Germany and every German was a stereotype, at best. Perhaps the film makers could have spent a minute or two of screen time to explain why Germany has mostly avoided the horrors of this recent economic crisis and has prospered while Spain still languishes in a funk of unemployment and lack of growth.
And does every Spanish woman have to be portrayed just like the girl in this movie? Stubborn and abrasive are always shown to be a given. I've seen this archetype at least 50 times in Spanish films. It's like the ideal for a Spanish woman was hatched in a movie years ago and no one has bothered to look for another version anywhere else.
The girl in this movie is a carbon copy of the gal from Ocho Apellidos and the plot is basically the same with a few adjustments. The main device is deception: in Ocho Apellidos it was about fooling her father about her wedding and in this film it's about tricking his parents and girlfriend into thinking that he's made it big in Berlin because that crap is always hilarious. This gag is so old and tired that it was already tired when Mozart plugged it into The Marriage of Figaro. Ugh, once again I advise you to take a nap and when you wake up come up with something a bit more original. Try writing some jokes.
This film should have been a big hit along the scale of Ocho Apellidos Vascos which wasn't very good either but at least it was a bit fresher while this newer movie mostly just imitated that monster hit. This movie began with a much better premise but wasted that by devolving immediately into slapstick. Here are a few of my thoughts.
A note to writers of Spanish romantic comedies: if you have an idea for two people meeting by literally running into each other have a nap and then think of something different. That sort of thing went out with I Love Lucy in the 1950s.
A note to writers of Spanish comedy: if you have an idea for a gag that involves someone falling down go take a nap and then come up with another idea. That sort of thing went out with silent movies. That also goes for pushing someone's face in a bowl of cereal, or mocking someone incapable of learning the host language, or pointing out only the most obvious and tired clichés of the differences between Spanish and German cultures (Germany is cold with bad food hilarious), lying about your job situation (also very I Love Lucy—a show that I hated as a kid), and fart jokes those are always funny I'm being serious. Fart jokes are OK by me.
Half-way through the film I was beginning to wonder if they would portray a single German person in a mildly favorable light. And Hitler jokes? Are you kidding me? Is that all the writers know about this country? They barely mentioned Germany and every German was a stereotype, at best. Perhaps the film makers could have spent a minute or two of screen time to explain why Germany has mostly avoided the horrors of this recent economic crisis and has prospered while Spain still languishes in a funk of unemployment and lack of growth.
And does every Spanish woman have to be portrayed just like the girl in this movie? Stubborn and abrasive are always shown to be a given. I've seen this archetype at least 50 times in Spanish films. It's like the ideal for a Spanish woman was hatched in a movie years ago and no one has bothered to look for another version anywhere else.
The girl in this movie is a carbon copy of the gal from Ocho Apellidos and the plot is basically the same with a few adjustments. The main device is deception: in Ocho Apellidos it was about fooling her father about her wedding and in this film it's about tricking his parents and girlfriend into thinking that he's made it big in Berlin because that crap is always hilarious. This gag is so old and tired that it was already tired when Mozart plugged it into The Marriage of Figaro. Ugh, once again I advise you to take a nap and when you wake up come up with something a bit more original. Try writing some jokes.