Pain and Gain, Michael Bay’s “Point Break with bodybuilders” movie (which is actually based on a true story) starring Mark Wahlberg and The Rock, hits April 26th, and just screened at CinemaCon yesterday to, um, reviews. The big question is, does Michael Bay still remember how to shoot human beings after three straight movies about robots? The good news is, he never did!
Here’s a new clip, which in just 42 seconds manages to lay out the Michael Bay blueprint for a scene. His secret? Every minor character is just one over-the-top, skin-deep gimmick, which then becomes both comic relief and plot point. In this case, it’s a gun store clerk who turns out to be a huge Stryper fan. The Rock and the boys tell him they’re cops, and he doesn’t believe them, but The Rock sees a Stryper sticker on the register and tells the clerk that they’re actually doing security for Stryper. Pretty soon he and the clerk are singing Stryper together right there in the gun store and everything works out okay! Haha, hilarious! Good thing the Stryper sticker didn’t turn out to be from another clerk, or any number of other infinite, more interesting possibilities!
Anyway, here’s the early word on the movie, from what I can gather from my Twitter follows:
Michael bay’s $25 million pain and gain is an impeccably crafted noisy soulless depressing enterprise. Dumb male demo.#cinemacon
— Anne Thompson (@akstanwyck) April 16, 2013
Pain & Gain was even better than I wanted it to be. Very dark, every character is hilariously stupider than the next. Awesome soundtrack.
— Peter Sciretta (@slashfilm) April 16, 2013
Michael Bay has discovered the secret to total review immunity (besides making movies about giant robots punching each other): that if you just make the same movie over and over again enough times, people will stop reviewing it in any traditional sense of the word, and instead just evaluate it in the extremely narrow context you’ve created for yourself. “Well it’s not very good, but it’s certainly Michael Bay-y! B+! Two so-so hands waffling WAY in the middle!”
More:
While “Pain & Gain” may have been smaller in scope than the “Transformers” series, it’s got loads to offer in different respects. We won’t be running a full review until closer to the film’s April 26th release, but know that Bay really pushes the boundaries when it comes to melding humor with some truly dark and often vicious material.
“Pain & Gain” is on the long side and you can certainly feel it, but the film’s ability to get you to enjoy watching three rather unlikeable leads is quite the achievement.
I’m very disappointed that this writer didn’t go with “Pain & Gain is on the long side and you can certainly feel it, feel it.”
[clip via ThePlaylist]