Kicking & Screaming

Year: 2005

Grade: C+

Country: USA

Director: Dylan

Review

pretty typical comic fare. will ferrell doesn’t advance his career in any meaningful way here. he should take a page out of steve martin’s book – martin seemed to add some wrinkle to his resume fairly deep into his career. sadly he has petered out lately, but if you look at his progression: the jerk in 1979, man with two brains 1983, ptaa 1987, parenthood 1989, la story 1991, spanish prisoner 1997, bowfinger 1999, novocaine 2001 you get a sense that with each major film he was expanding his career in some way. this is what the greats do. if will ferrell would rather end up like chevy chase, that’s fine, but i just think he’d be wise to stay on the choosy side. that said, he was in woody allen’s latest film, so maybe kicking and screaming was just a money movie. i think the guy has talent and i’d hate to see it wasted on a bunch of standard films like this.

all this isn’t to say that k&s is worthless, it’s not. there are some laughs and some decent secondary performances (including one by 14 year old steven anthony lawrence), but the screenplay left something to be desired and it’s nothing hampered by the genre conventions we all know so well.

Watched in theater