The Little Hours (2017)

I added The Little Hours on my watchlist ages ago because of the cast, specifically Aubrey Plaza and Dave Franco, but because of the characters, which are mostly nuns, I kept putting it off. I would have checked it earlier though if I had bothered reading the storyline. 

The film is based on the first tale of the third day of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron —which I'm yet to read—, and mainly follows three nuns, Sister Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza), Sister Ginevra (Kate Micucci), and Sister Alessandra (Alison Brie), who lives at a convent in the countryside. When a young, handsome servant (Dave Franco) fleeing from his master (Nick Offerman) takes refuge in the convent, the sexually-repressed nuns find ways to escape from their tedious lives. 

6 Balloons (2018)

I stumbled upon 6 Balloons while searching for films to add on my already very long watchlist on Netflix. It sounded interesting and it had Dave Franco so I decided to give it a chance. 

The story follows Katie (Abbi Jacobson) as she is finishing organizing a surprise party for her boyfriend, Jack (Dawan Owens). When she goes to pick her up brother, Seth (Dave Franco) and his young daughter, Ella, Katie finds out that Seth has relapsed on heroin, and embarks on a journey to help her brother while at the same time dealing with her own life. 

The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)

I grew up playing with LEGO (and I probably still would if I wasn't busy all the time and their stuff wasn't so expensive -- a thing is having your parents paying it, a thing is paying it yourself) and, on my teen years, I occasionally stumbled upon the series Ninjago on TV. I didn't love it but it was okay when there wasn't anything else interesting on TV. I guess I watched The LEGO Ninjago Movie for the same reason, I didn't have anything better to watch and although I had very little expectations, the film managed to disappoint me. 

It's a hard knock life for Lloyd (Dave Franco), the 16-year-old estranged son of Garmadon (Justin Theroux), the evil warlord who keeps trying to take control of Ninjago City and keeps failing because of a secret gang of ninjas. Turns out Lloyd is the leader of those ninjas but this time the battle against his father will be much harder as the ultimate weapon is unleashed.

Unfinished Business (2015)

Genre

Comedy

Director

Ken Scott

Country

USA

Cast

Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, June Diane Raphael, Ella Anderson, Britton Sear, James Marsden, Nick Frost

Storyline

Hard-working small business owner Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn) and his two associate, Tim McWinters (Tom Wilkinson) and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives. But what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every way imaginable - and unimaginable.

Opinion

Given the awful reviews all over the internet, I wasn't expecting much from this film, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good this film actually was. Okay, maybe I'm being too generous.

Suffering from a poorly written script, Unfinished Business does have its moments, but the humour is not always on point.

The plot is always the same trite, seen thousands of times, and totally lacking in originality - it's like The Hangover met Eurotrip -, yet the film manages to entertain a little - or not bore, which suits better in this case - through the misfortunes affecting the three main characters.

Like most comedies these days, the film does not spare vulgarity. On one hand the language is a bit more chaste than usual, but on the other hand the film "recovers" with sex and nudity scenes. 

Writer Steve Conrad, the same guy who wrote The Pursuit of Happiness, should probably work on more serious projects, as he appears to be awkward when it comes to writing comedies. When watching this film it comes to the attention that he is not able to write jokes. Vince Vaughn running in a woman's jogging clothes will never be funny, nor will be laughing at someone just because of his last name.

Also, the subplot with Vaughn's family is unnecessary since it's not properly developed, and shouldn't have been included because it feels completely out of place in such a film.

However, the performances are able to increase the level of the film. Just a little bit. Vince Vaughn does a good job, but he once again plays that character he does in every film he does. Tom Wilkinson's talent is definitely wasted here, but he give a solid support to Vaughn. Dave Franco really impressed me. I, like everyone else, am used to see Franco playing this pretty douchebags with egos bigger than Kim Kardashian's butt, and finally seeing him in a different role, playing an awkward, shy and mentally challenged guy was pleasing.

I have a question for my American readers. Why do you guys always portray Europeans as sex freaks?