by Craig Carilli

Is there anything funnier than a film critic trying to be funny in reviewing a movie that’s trying to be funny?

In a word: No.

LA Times reviewer Michael Phillips has a real understanding of the give and take that goes into reviewing romantic comedies, or “rom-coms” as he dubs them.

I usually hate rhymes, but when you hit the nail on the head the nails goes into the wall laughing hysterically. The basic rule for rom-com reviews is when the movie’s funny, highlight this fact and quote the hell out of it for comedic effect. When the movie doesn’t deliver on the funny, you not only point out the movie’s faults, you use it as a spring board for your own jokes. I don’t think anyone else in the country writing reviews today gets this more than Phillips. Not only do I now get to avoid spending my hard-earned money on an unfunny rom-com, I also get to lmao finding this fact out.

By referencing William Shakespeare (the king of rom-coms), “Annie Hall” and the 1945 classic “I Know Where I’m Going!”, Phillips lets us know he’s put in the research that enables him to truly understand what makes us laugh. He’s wants his readers to know they can trust him on what was funny, what is funny and what will be funny in the future. It’s this literary and classic film comedy background that inspires the uncompromising jokes in the review.

Phillips starts off the review with a joke about the movie’s writers being script doctors: “Yikes. Is there a doctor for the doctors in this house?”, he asks, rhetorically.

Two doctors in one line.

Risky? Sure. Funny? Hell yes. I needed a doctor after reading it to fix my split side.

In describing some of the predictable interactions between the lead characters, he hits us with this whopper:

“…to humanize material that puts the “ick” in “formulaic.”

Somebody better call one of those doctors up because a whole bunch of readers just got smashed in the funny bone.

In wrapping up his take on the story line, he turns the whole idea of what a review should or can be right on its ear: “And there you have it: another rom-com without much rom or com.” [italics mine]

Besides being laugh out loud hilarious, Phillips has taken his rom-com idea, dissected it and re-invented it all in one line. In all my years of reviewing movie reviews I’ve never even heard of such a thing.

Phillips has taken the romantic comedy review to dizzying new heights. It’s a review like this that reminds us all why we started reading reviews in the first place. Inventive, dangerous and, most importantly, very funny.

This review delivers in all the ways it should and in ways never before imagined.