Review: Wild Hogs

Four middle aged buddies who want to re-capture their youth and get away from their stiff lives, embark on a motorcycle road trip. Everything is going hunky dory, until they meet up with a real motorcycle gang known as the Del Fuegos. VERY light comedy ensues.

When you watch a comedy, it’s pretty evident that you want to laugh. Clearly there are a lot of different kinds of humor out there i.e. slapstick, raunchy, childish and the list goes on. Then there’s a universal kind of humor for which pretty much everyone will laugh and find the content funny i.e. THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. So where does WILD HOGS fit into the scope of things? Well, It ain’t THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, that’s for sure! WILD HOGS is the type of light comedy to which I can bring my mom and my grandma and not worry about whether or not they’re going to be offended. The whole story is pretty much by the book, the whole “save the town” bit and “stand up to the bully” scenario were predictable and the jokes elementary, but I gotta admit…I did laugh.

Aside from William H. Macy, the acting from the rest of the buddies was…embarrassing. I think John Travolta needs to take a brush-up course on his acting. It was just horrible and forced. As for Tim Allen, he just needs to stick to voice-overs, period. All he ever plays on-screen is the Toolman, even when he’s playing Santa. Martin Lawrence didn’t even look like he meshed with the guys and like Allen, he always plays the same guy (in this flick, he was a toned down version of that guy). Bah! Macy was the only real pleasant surprise here. This guy can pull off comedy and I think that in the future he should try working with Will Ferrell (or along those lines) and see where the comedic route could take his career. Not that he needs to take his career anywhere, he’s talented.

Oh yeah, before I forget, Marisa Tomei is as cute and sexy as ever. But I didn’t buy into the chemistry she had with Macy’s character. Wouldn’t happen! The biggest disappointment was Ray Liotta though. Dude…why? Why did you make this movie?! The part he played as the ring leader of the biker gang was just plain over-the-top and stupid. Sigh.

I don’t get it. How can a guy like Brad Copeland (he wrote the screenplay) write scripts for T.V. shows like “My Name is Earl” and “Arrested Development” (which are brilliant) and then go and write something like this?? The script was extremely weak and the story felt like it was written about kids, but then they just switched the roles to middle-aged adults instead. They should have made this into an animated flick; I would have respected it more!

In case you didn’t guess this already, I wouldn’t exactly recommend that you rush out to see this. It’s not really a date movie either. I guess I would reserve this for that one time of year when you do catch a movie with your parents. Maybe go see this one for some light clean comedy? Or not…

— by Tim
Goernert