Review of I'm So Excited! (2013) by Alexandro O — 06 Nov 2013

Making light of an emergency. So this is about a colorful flight crew that is in a panic because there is something wrong with the landing gear, and they can't find a free airstrip to land on. They try their hardest to keep the passengers calm with the aid of drugs and alcohol.

This is from Pedro Almodovar, an acclaimed Spanish director that I am not as familiar with as I should be. However, I have seen his other most recent film, The Skin I Live In, which I was thoroughly impressed with at every turn.

This is a serious director doing something different and goofy, which is something I can appreciate; I always like to see it when directors can dip their toes in different genres. This is the first airplane comedy since.

.. well, Airplane!, as far as I can recall. It's full of light, farcical high jinks, features cartoonish characters, and it's not terribly ambitious, but that's okay. One thing that I do like about Almodovar's style of direction is that he's not afraid of sexuality, which is refreshing in this day and age where people don't bat an eye at gruesome violence, but freak out when there is even a hint of sex.

This isn't a great movie; every character's individual stories don't exactly fit together naturally, they are more standalone than anything, and none of them are terribly deep. Still, I got a good number of laughs out of it, so there's that.