The Wild Hogs of the title aren’t exactly a biker gang. They just pretend to be one on weekends and for the occasional ride during the week. But Doug (Tim Allen) and his crew have all hit something of a milestone. Actually, it’s a mid-life crisis. Just don’t tell them that.
So one day on their ride they decide that they are ready to take a real ride. A cross-country ride. And what a ride it will be, with the wind in their hair (or what hair they have left, at any rate) and a real chance at freedom. Or at least as close as they are probably going to get at any point in the near future.
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I have enjoyed Will Smith for quite a while. He’s had a few flubs, such as Wild, Wild West, but generally even in those, he can be entertaining to watch.
This time around, Smith plays Alex “Hitch” Hitchens, matchmaker extraordinaire. He doesn’t advertise, and won’t even talk to you if your plan is just to get the girl for one night. For Hitch, it’s all about the long ball.
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Luther and Nora Krank typically spend their Christmas season with everyone. The emphasis here is on spend. With so many holiday decorations and parties, last year they spent more than six thousand dollars. This year, however, their daughter Blair is joining the Peace Corps, and so they’re on their own. Luther Krank (Tim Allen) has an idea. Since Blair isn’t going to be home, and he and Nora will have all this time to be alone, why not just skip Christmas entirely?
As an accountant, it actually works out great. As a man, he knows he can’t get away with just ducking the holiday, so he comes up with a plan: They’ll take a cruise. Even after planning for a full cruise package, they are going to come out thousands of dollars ahead. Assuming that they can duck all of their standard holiday commitments, and that isn’t going to be an easy task. The first thing he has to do is sell his wife on the idea. It turns out that will be the easy part of it.
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When Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) wakes up, he knows that he doesn’t want to go to school. He’s ready to take a day off and stop to take a look around. If you don’t, life just might pass you by. But in order to do that, he has to convince his parents that he’s sick enough to stay home, but not sick enough to go to the doctor.
In order to do that, Ferris gives us his plan. He’s going for the clammy hands. While he’s bent over from coughing, he licks the palms, which gives them the wet feeling. He also gives us a point-by-point on-screen blow of why not to go for a fever (you might end up at the doctor’s office). Which is a little odd, really, because the on-screen thing isn’t used elsewhere. But it works, and his parents head to work and he has the day off. Now he just has to get through it.
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On another indeterminate day, sometime after the original Clerks ended, Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) is headed back to the Quick Stop. Only today is a little different than another day, because as he lifts the door to the store, he sees something different inside. Fire. Lots and lots of fire. At first, he can’t believe it, so he simply shuts the door.
Then he lifts it again, verifies that it is indeed fire, and he calls 911.
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A seemingly never-ending line of dirt-encrusted men, women and at least one child prepare to be hanged in the gallows, all to appease Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) and his war on the pirates. As they march endlessly towards their doom, a cryer announces that item after item is suspended. No longer can people gather, demonstrate or even have lawyers. Instead, they can just die.
Then, a young lad, clutching a piece of eight, begins to softly sing. The song is gradually picked up by each of the others in line behind him, until it seems that everyone is singing the haunting song. This seems to do nothing more than infuriate Beckett.
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Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is ready to treat the family to a completely new sort of vacation – in Las Vegas! Of course, if you know Clark, you know that he doesn’t always think things through, and though his plan this time around seems to be to spend time with his family (as always), he is sidetracked (as always) by the allure of making easy money at the gambling tables.
Naturally he is joined by his lovely wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), and they also bring along kids Audrey (Marisol Nichols) and Rusty (Ethan Embry). As with the prior films in the “series”, in this go-round where the kids are played by different actors than their predecessors.
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A local sheriff (Brendan Gleeson) pulls a diver out of Black Lake (they wanted to call it Lake Placid, but that name was already taken), only to find that he’s been bitten in half. What they find is a tooth, and this gets sent to a museum for analysis.
The tooth ends up in the hands of Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), who doesn’t usually do field research, and most certainly not in Maine. But because her boss – and boyfriend – has decided to do a little extra-curricular activity of his own with her friend, she ends up in the backwoods. This may or may not be a good choice.
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The fifth movie in the American Pie franchise sets several new bars.
First and foremost, it’s probably the worst in the bunch, though American Wedding really wasn’t very good either. At best, I’d have to say that they tied for last in this department.
Second, Mr. Levenstein (Eugene Levy) makes another cameo here, like he did in American Pie Presents Band Camp, but the ties to the original are getting weaker all along.
In fact, without that, Mr. Levenstein’s story about Jim and Michelle, a brief mention of “Great Falls” and the fact that the main character here (as well as in Band Camp) were named “Stifler”, there would be no tie at all to the original story. Not that that’s bad. Just a thought.
Just like in American Wedding and Band Camp, the language is ratcheted up a notch, but unlike in those two, it keeps going pretty much throughout here. To match it, there are also some reasonably gross scenes as well. I hope you’re ready.
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When Andy Farmer (Chevy Chase) receives a $10,000 advance from his publisher, he and his wife decide that it’s finally time to make the leap. They purchase a house in the country, and leave the city behind.
The first glimpse of their new home is a wonderful one. The town of Redbud, perhaps not, but then, we don’t really see much of it, as the Farmers appear to be on the outskirts of town. So much so, in fact, that their moving van can’t find them until the next day, and it means that they have to suffer through the first night without a change of clothes, without furniture, and without even anything to eat.
In retrospect, they should perhaps have taken this as a sign and moved back to the city.
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