Arthur

Arthur is one of those movie that will live up to the hype from the trailers or people will leave the theater stating they put all the funny parts in the trailers. Arthur is a remake of the movie with the same name from 1981 starring Dudley Moore. When I saw the first trailer I looked very forward to seeing it just because simply I believe Russell Brand to be very funny. While I have seen the original version it had been a very long time since I saw it and so I was able to go into this remake without any preconceived notions. For me the biggest issue going into this movie was going to be if Russell Brand could carry a movie as the lead or if he is just a funny sidekick type.

So obviously the first part I am going to talk about is that of what made for the toughest issue is could Russell Brand able to be a leading funny man. He plays the role precisely how it needs to be played so that he becomes very lovable to the audience. In this movie he still had a lot of alcohol involved in his character and played the same part the same way we have seen him do a hundred times. However this time, we get to see Brand take on a character that is truly in love, which is quite often in this movie. The director of this film brilliantly integrated the drunk nature of Arthur with the true love side, which forced Brand to have to explore his acting dynamics in this film. I'm happy to say that he did this quite well and really made Arthur a believable human being. The only issue I had with it is that there were a couple lines here and there that were hard to hear because they ended up being a little too soft spoken so that you could not clearly understand what was said. The comedy interaction between Brand and Mirren is really surprising.

However, Brand's acting would have not been nearly enough though were it not for the great performances provided by Helen Mirren and Greta Gerwig. Naturally, people are going to laugh with the interactions between Brand and Mirren because of the simple fact that at a man at the age of 30 still has a nanny is funny in and of itself. Mirren really plays the uptight nanny with great perfection. To me one of the more interesting parts to is the fact that she found the arrangement of a loving and care-giving relationship with Arthur somewhat satisfying, and at least safe. Her reasons, of course, she wisely keeps to herself, the audience is left to make up their own plausible back-story. Greta Gerwig as the real love interest of Arthur is simply adorable. I have never seen her before, but found her absolutely perfect. She is sweet without being so sweet it is sickening, attractive without catering to some cranked-out version of media hotness "a la mode." She seemed genuine, deep, innocent, and completely the kind of person anyone, especially Arthur, would love to spend time with for the intrinsic delight of her company and her vibe. Gerwig deftly showed us her character's heart without any effort or melodrama.

I really enjoyed the direction of this movie. The plot was not overly hard, but instead kept things fairly simple. Unlike other comedies of late where they tend to fall apart in the end as the jokes in and of themselves are not enough, Arthur on the other hand is able to avoid this pitfall because they are actually able to successfully move the plot along. The constant struggle Arthur faced to listen to his heart and to his nanny, really made the situation seem real. Although it was a little extreme, the choice Arthur had to make is similar to the crucial decisions the typical human has to make. It's not always easy and there are times where you may think everyone else is correct, but in the end you have to figure out what is right. Thus, the characters were very believable.

Obviously, there are going to be those that this movie will not appeal to because they want brilliant art type movies. Arthur is not going to change the way you view your life or even how you are with your family. Instead, this movie simply goes out to entertain us and does not need to be taken seriously. I truly enjoyed this movie and a movie is successful in my book when you are able to laugh throughout and in looking back there are even a few moments where the entire audience is laughing so hard that other funny moments may have been missed out on. I am giving Arthur three and three-fourth buckets of popcorn out of five. This is definitely a movie that is worth having the full movie experience at a theater in order to see.

-The Movie Man