Wow is this a disappointment.

And to be fair, I quit watching not much more than half way through. So maybe it turns around in the second half. I doubt it.

They did some things right, I'll start there. Kato, the sidekick, is the real hero, or at least the main one. He has a superpower and he's a genius. But he's considered the sidekick. So right there is a new twist on this genre, and a formula ripe for humor and comic tension. And sometimes it works fairly well.

Seth Rogen is one of those actors that can be kind of funny even if he's doing nothing. And he's playing the part of a rich, spoiled, slacker dude who has inherited his family business empire. This role seems a natural for him.

So why isn't it working, at least in the first half of the movie that I saw, anyway? It's a hundred million dollar comedy. And it's not funny. It's cute sometimes. Kato is a well created character. It seems much of the humor from him extends from his limited English, though. Rogen is occasionally funny and witty in the way he can be; and sometimes just plain annoying to be honest.

The best thing I can take from this film is that it seems to be trying to teach me, as an aspiring writer, something about structure, though I'm not sure what yet. The problem I think can be boiled down to this: if you were watching this at the cinema, you would have no problem at any point during the film getting up to get popcorn. Or have a smoke if you are a smoker. There's nothing that holds you in your seat. There's no question you need answered, nothing you are afraid  to miss. Part of that might be do the character goal, which seems to be, 'let's become superheros because I'm rich and I have nothing better to do and it'll be cool'.

Let's put it this way. If you paid $10, you'd be pissed. If you're watching it on TV, when the commercial comes and you surf to another channel, you'll probably forget to come back. And if you're watching on DVD, you'll find yourself fast forwarding. A lot.

A dull yet irritating action-comedy devoid of action or laughs which is perfectly summed up by its moronic, loud-mouthed, highly reprehensible protagonist.  Gondry should be ashamed, Waltz should spend his time better, Chou should get his own movie, and Rogen should f*** off.

I guess Rogen is where we all want to be: to be able to write bad movies, get 100million dollar budgets, and get to do it over and over. Isn't that how it works? The movie doesn't lose money, because it gets a cool trailer, which means he'll get his next film funded, and on and on it goes. That's called success.

It doesn't sound like the worst kinda life, I've got to admit...