Review of Why Him? (2016) by Patrick L — 04 Feb 2017

"Oh why, oh why, oh why does this movie even exist? "Why Him?" is a categorically stupid comedy that's littered with F-bombs, raunchy humor and moose urine".

Movie Review: Why Him?

Date Viewed: December 27 2016.

Directed By John Hamburg (I Love You, Man).

Screenplay By John Hamburg and Ian Helfer, Story By Jonah Hill, John Hamburg and Ian Helfer.

Starring: James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mullally, Griffin Gluck, Keegan-Michael Key, Cedric the Entertainer, Kaley Cuoco, Zack Pearlman, Casey Wilson, Andrew Rannells and Adam DeVine.

Oh why, Oh why, Oh why does this movie even exist? "Why Him? is a categorically stupid comedy that's littered with F-bombs, raunchy humor and moose urine. What were Bryan Cranston and James Franco thinking of? Did Cranston know that this movie would be toxic for his career and does Franco ever do something different? I'm sorry, he did something different seven years ago when he inexplicably appeared in several episodes of "General Hospital".

This R-rated movie has various amounts of these proper ingredients in order to possibly make a good holiday buck, product placement (Applebee's and Domino's Pizza), unnecessary cameos (Elon Musk, Steve Aoki and Gene Simmons) and even an in-home Siri who's voiced by Kaley Cuoco. It is exactly like "Meet the Parents" but with an R-rating and if it were severely molested by the bear from "The Revenant". When did today's R-rated comedies turn into grotesque and vile monsters? Speaking of "Meet the Parents", a few "Fockers" alums were involved in the making of this film. Ben Stiller and his Red Hour Productions produced this thing and John Hamburg who wrote all three of the "Fockers" movies co-wrote and directed it as well.

Even though I just did my worst of the year list already, I may redo it thanks to "Why Him?". GODDAMN YOU! 2016 are you even done with this world yet? Just leave already! Since it's aiming to be a big holiday comedy hit just like "Daddy's Home" last year, "Why Him?" is set around during the peak of the Christmas holidays where we meet Ned Fleming (Cranston), a businessman who owns a struggling printing business but he puts his job aside just to visit his 20-something daughter. Ned, his wife, Barb (Megan Mullally) and their 15-year-son, Scotty (Griffin Gluck, from "Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life") travel from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Silicon Valley where they meet their daughter, Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) and her heavily-tattooed, internet billionaire boyfriend, Laird Mayhew (Franco).

Ned immediately despises his daughter's boyfriend because he is a vulgar and loud-mouth idiot but Barb and his son don't seem to mind at all. Laird's house is full of raunchy and slapstick wonder as we see that the house has fully-automatic tech toilets that have no need for toilet paper and he keeps a dead moose inside a huge round bowl of moose urine. As Ned and Laird fight over for the affection and love of Stephanie who is a one-dimensional twat in this movie, Laird plans to propose to her and that sends Ned into breaking-bad panic mode. This lethargic comedic disaster also co-stars Cedric the Entertainer as Ned's best friend and co-worker and Keegan-Michael Key as Laird's.... butler? calmer assistant? trainer? I don't really know but his fake-European accent is really, really, really bad and it certainly doesn't make the movie any funnier.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I laughed a few times during the movie's first ten minutes but "Why Him?" grows progressively worse with each interminable raunchy gag that follows and Cranston and Franco don't seem to have good chemistry together. "Why Him?" is a comedy that feels out of touch with today's social and tech environments and none of the characters feel real. How can Hollywood take two of the most wild card/loose cannon actors around and put them in a movie that's dreadfully stupid on every front.

"Why Him?" suffers from a definitive case of the Adam Sandler syndrome. Why do you think this movie has bathroom humor and gross out gags? Also with all of Sandler's movies, "Why Him?" tries to be all mushy and nice at the end but it has a recycled formula that just won't shut up and a tired overprotective father versus adolescent handsome boyfriend setup we've seen play out before in other movies.