brianmcdoogle
Member
I saw Spy today. It was good, but I was hoping for a little more fun and twists on the conventions of a spy thriller: 3/5. There's my 1 sentence review.
SPOILERS FOR VIOLENCE IN SPY. NO STORY SPOILERS.
But what struck me, and kind of bothered me, is the amount of graphic violence in the movie. You see someone get his throat eaten by acid, someone else stabbed in the hand with a knife, numerous people shot over and over with blood spraying out of their wounds, and one guy get viciously killed, thrown from a building, stabbed through the chest, neck, and then vomited on. Out of all of those, only one seemed to me to be played for laughs, and that's the last one because of how over the top it was. YET, I just don't find it that funny.
I don't pay attention to ratings for movies. Something can be PG, PG-13, or R and I have no idea what it is going into the movie, nor do I really care; I'm an adult and don't have to pay attention to that stuff. But I'm watching this movie and it suddenly dawns on me that it is R, and I started to think why? Why does this need to be R? Why is it funny that one guy says he wants to "fuck her hard" instead of something a little more clever without the vulgarity? Why can't the violence be without gore and excess?
I'm not saying I'm a prude. I go see violent, adult movies all the time with lots of swear words and blood and what-have-you; I love Robocop and have only one or two nitpicks with the movie. But with these types of comedies (I'll include something like Kingsman, which I haven't seen but am told is violent, and Kick-Ass, which I walked out on because I found it obnoxious, homophobic, and made by people who saw Poochie on the Simpsons but didn't understand he was a joke) I just don't understand the violence. It's can't be a realism thing, because these movies aren't realistic. So, I assume it is because of comedic reasons.
If you find this funny, can you try to explain it to me? Is it just because it is jarring and completely out of tone with the rest of the film? Spy is funny and wacky and kind of sweet at times, but then we see acid eat a person's throat. Ok. Well, there's lots of jokes in that scene, and we know the bad guy is a very bad guy already (in a scene that required little to no blood at all), and we have no emotional attachment to the character dying (unless you hated him in The Office), so... what's the point? It can't be to scare the audience. It can't be to make things personal or dire for the heroine. And with all the jokes before, after, and during the scene, my only assumption is that it is because it is funny. But why?
I know comedy is personal and you either get it or you don't, but this type of wanton, excessive violence in comedies (not just movies with one scene, but repeated ones) really baffles me. Is it just to drive up the rating? Is it to make the teenagers in the audience excited?
Spoilers for the end of The Interview:
Because I'm supposed to have my mouth gapped open, rib the person sitting next to me and say "DAMN!" and then after the movie as we're walking out go "I can't believe they did that!" as if what they did was risky and interesting and not totally something trite and done repeatedly by hackneyed talentless filmmakers?
I'll juxtapose this with movies by Tarantino. He makes violent movies, and I'm never that bothered by the violence because of how it fits in his movies. We know him, we know his world and characters, and when the violence happens, either for comedic effects or for other purposes, I accept it. Yet when I saw Django Unchained, a decent portion of the theatre laughed at a lot of the violence (and these are usually people under what I assume is the age of 30 laughing).
Am I out of touch? No. It's the children who are wrong! And, again to reiterate, I'm not on some moral crusade against this type of violence. I just don't get it. I just sit and think "well, what was the point of that" with almost no reaction. I'm not wincing or looking away from the screen. Rather, I'm just sitting there, kind of numb, going "ok? I guess that is supposed to be funny or something?"
Anyway, I know I'm out of the norm on this type of stuff since many people see and like these movies, and I rarely hear/read people complain about the graphic violence, but I just don't understand why it has creeped into comedies like it has in the last decade or so.
SPOILERS FOR VIOLENCE IN SPY. NO STORY SPOILERS.
But what struck me, and kind of bothered me, is the amount of graphic violence in the movie. You see someone get his throat eaten by acid, someone else stabbed in the hand with a knife, numerous people shot over and over with blood spraying out of their wounds, and one guy get viciously killed, thrown from a building, stabbed through the chest, neck, and then vomited on. Out of all of those, only one seemed to me to be played for laughs, and that's the last one because of how over the top it was. YET, I just don't find it that funny.
I don't pay attention to ratings for movies. Something can be PG, PG-13, or R and I have no idea what it is going into the movie, nor do I really care; I'm an adult and don't have to pay attention to that stuff. But I'm watching this movie and it suddenly dawns on me that it is R, and I started to think why? Why does this need to be R? Why is it funny that one guy says he wants to "fuck her hard" instead of something a little more clever without the vulgarity? Why can't the violence be without gore and excess?
I'm not saying I'm a prude. I go see violent, adult movies all the time with lots of swear words and blood and what-have-you; I love Robocop and have only one or two nitpicks with the movie. But with these types of comedies (I'll include something like Kingsman, which I haven't seen but am told is violent, and Kick-Ass, which I walked out on because I found it obnoxious, homophobic, and made by people who saw Poochie on the Simpsons but didn't understand he was a joke) I just don't understand the violence. It's can't be a realism thing, because these movies aren't realistic. So, I assume it is because of comedic reasons.
If you find this funny, can you try to explain it to me? Is it just because it is jarring and completely out of tone with the rest of the film? Spy is funny and wacky and kind of sweet at times, but then we see acid eat a person's throat. Ok. Well, there's lots of jokes in that scene, and we know the bad guy is a very bad guy already (in a scene that required little to no blood at all), and we have no emotional attachment to the character dying (unless you hated him in The Office), so... what's the point? It can't be to scare the audience. It can't be to make things personal or dire for the heroine. And with all the jokes before, after, and during the scene, my only assumption is that it is because it is funny. But why?
I know comedy is personal and you either get it or you don't, but this type of wanton, excessive violence in comedies (not just movies with one scene, but repeated ones) really baffles me. Is it just to drive up the rating? Is it to make the teenagers in the audience excited?
Spoilers for the end of The Interview:
I saw the leaked ending a while back, and you can add this as another example. Why is the detailed depiction of a head exploding funny? Because of who it is? Because of how graphic it is supposed to be?
I'll juxtapose this with movies by Tarantino. He makes violent movies, and I'm never that bothered by the violence because of how it fits in his movies. We know him, we know his world and characters, and when the violence happens, either for comedic effects or for other purposes, I accept it. Yet when I saw Django Unchained, a decent portion of the theatre laughed at a lot of the violence (and these are usually people under what I assume is the age of 30 laughing).
Am I out of touch? No. It's the children who are wrong! And, again to reiterate, I'm not on some moral crusade against this type of violence. I just don't get it. I just sit and think "well, what was the point of that" with almost no reaction. I'm not wincing or looking away from the screen. Rather, I'm just sitting there, kind of numb, going "ok? I guess that is supposed to be funny or something?"
Anyway, I know I'm out of the norm on this type of stuff since many people see and like these movies, and I rarely hear/read people complain about the graphic violence, but I just don't understand why it has creeped into comedies like it has in the last decade or so.
_/¯
