Review of The Night Before (2015) by Kyle B — 17 Nov 2015

This is one of those movies where if you think you are the audience for this movie then you will enjoy it. It is a little too much like Pineapple Express, you can take that as you can since I wasn't a fan of that movie, heavy on the drug jokes but lacking much else.

The jokes felt a bit one note because "look what drugs do to you kids! Isn't this fun?!" but look, I laughed a lot and I give credit to the talent of these actors. Seth Rogan is great as always, Levitt is charming as always though I think he was given the lesser material of the bunch, and Anthony Mackie redeemed himself from his awful performance in Love the Coopers.

The supporting cast is also wonderful including Michael Shannon, Lizzy Caplan, Mindy Kaling, Lorraine Toussaint, Illana Glazer, and Jillian Bell who stole the movie once again like she did for both Goosebumps and 22 Jump Street.

I think the most disappointing this about the overall movie is that it is a big step down from director Jonathan Levine's last two movies Warm Bodies and 50/50. It lacked the pure originality to those movies and felt like it was just Evan Goldberg directing again (he is the usual director of these Seth Rogan movies and was a co writer for this one).

The editing and camera work for this movie was just terrible to the point I had to look away from how clunky some scenes were filmed. There are 3 big cameos in this movie that I won't spoil but I will say the two of the cameos is amazing and perfect but the singer cameo was bad but she made it up by letting Joseph Godron Levitt belt one of her songs during the climax of this movie.

I expected a little more risk taking from the Rogan/Goldberg team than playing it safe on these jokes (which playing it safe for these guys is not so safe for others but you know what I mean, some more clever writing).

But all in all, I laughed a whole lot though it is softer than Rogan's past work but it is far better than the other christmas movie out this year, Love the Coopers.