Review: "They Came Together"

In a world of "Scary Movie" sequels skewering horror flicks, it was great to read earlier this year that Amy Poehler would take on the genre of romcoms. I was really looking forward to seeing this film that I let out a squeal when I was offered a review DVD copy of "They Came Together."

While I laughed a lot, I was also a bit disappointed.

The high points: The characters practically talked to the camera to point out which rom-com trope they would enacting. Especially the way Amy and Paul Rudd described each other in the opening scene. It was a brilliant piece of writing and acting. Then the way NYC is introduced as another important character (it's also on the DVD case) was like a cherry on a sundae. Amy and Paul are spot on in their characters.

EXCEPT...there are too many moments in the movie where they try to a shove one more trope into the movie and it just seems forced. Plus any movie with a rape and Nazi joke has to get them spot on and they were just off.

But back to the good stuff...There are a lot of laughs stuffed into this film. Some are great laughs, most were "OMG, this is so dumb!" laughs. Of course, when you think it is dumb is really just a recognition that a certain trope of rom-coml movies is revealed to be so dumb its laughable. Cue poop jokes, surprise kid, and the cougar mother-in-law.

There is a lot of smart stuff in this film, but again too many spots where it falls flat. Maybe I expected too much considering how much I adore almost everything Amy and Paul do. Maybe they just tried too hard. I'm thinking a lot of both.

"They Came Together" is rated R and available on digital download and DVD.

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