A combination of Russell Brand and Jonah Hill is always a solid hour and a half of laughter. This is what most movie enthusiasts would love to believe and this was also the same school of thought I was trailing when I saw the initial teaser trailer for “Get him to the Greek”. Eager to see the magnificent duo back on screen since “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” from 2008 where they starred alongside Jason Segal I managed to download my self a pretty decent DVD rip.
Jason Segal – More commonly know as “Marshall” in the hit TV series “How I met your mother” co – wrote the sequel “Get him to the Greek”. This personally I distinguish as a weaker script with comparison to the initial “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. Allow me to elaborate; Forgetting Sarah Marshall here on referred to as movie “A” and Get him to the Greek referred to as movie “B”. When you manage to create a hit as well as “A” the sequel always has to better. Most writers and directors always fall short to meet this expectation of there valued viewers. Movie “A” was very fast paced and the direction had more of a “Slapstick” genre, where as in movie “B” the comedy was too “Spaced out”. This resulted in the loss of the effectiveness in the humor the cast and the director expected to achieve. Imagine you have a good hearty laugh and then the next laugh comes in after a good 15 minutes. If you do the math it results in about 6 laughs within the 90 minutes of the whole movie. This approach as I perceive is an effective approach for Horror /Thriller flick to gain the element of surprise, however a comedy has to always be fast paced and slapstick.
Russell Brand; quite unmarked to the wide screen has an outstanding talent and the portrayal of “Aldous Snow” in Both Movies “A & B” is spectacular. If I may say, his portrayal of Aldous Snow succeeded the initial movie. This is a positive signature in the movie where we see the talent of the writers and the director and undoubtedly the actor being brought to the spotlight. Obvious fact we should not oversee is that Russell Brand is of an English Background and the accent fits perfectly into the British rock star he portrays which brings out an entirely new extension of success to the character portrayal of “Aldous Snow”.
I am unable to pen down such a positive thought on Jonah Hills Portrayal of Aaron Green. This is where as writers Jason Segal and Nicholas Stoller falls short to build up on. The success of a comedy as I mention before is its tendency to move faster as its builds up to the climax. The character of Aaron Green does not have enough “pump” in him to support the pace the movie needed. This lacking element in “Get him to the Greek” (Movie B) is the exact factor Jason Segal , Russell Brand & Jonah Hill managed to Capture in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Movie A).
Come to think of all of it at length I am starting to wonder if they should have attempted this as a sequel or if the writes and the director should have attempted a completely new approach and a brand new movie. This would have for sure given me a higher rate of satisfaction since I will not be benchmarking it with the initial movie. Besides where have we ever seen a sequel match up to the initial release. In my opinion “The Matrix – Trilogy” & “The Lord of the Ring –Trilogy” is all I can think of as a successful franchise production.
Never the less, I must commend that the combination of talent in the all departments for this production is a sheer “recipe for success”. The cast, the writers and the director always have given us a good hearty laugh.
I pity they failed. I pity they made it a sequel.