The main question you ask yourself towards the end of watching this movie is, “is being raunchy funny?”. Is raunchy disgusting humor always funny in a movie, is this something that always works? It worked in Animal House in 1979 but is this something that is a 100% guaranteed home run? Of course the answer to this is no. This movie tries hard to be funny but unfortunately for every 5 attempts at verbal or visual humor, maybe 1 out of worked and that is stretching it. During the entire two hours this movie was on screen I heard maybe 5 laughs and I only laughed once. The cardinal sin for any comedy movie is that if its not funny then the movie failed and for the most part this movie failed at being a funny comedy movie.

Many Saturday Night Live alums were in this movie but the only one that got any real time on screen was Bobby Moynahan and overall he could be considered the funniest one in this mostly unfunny movie. Kate McKinnon was also in this movie and she got maybe 2 minutes of screen time which is not nearly enough considering her talent.

This very simple story is about 2 sisters who visit their parents home in Orlando only to find out that their childhood house is being sold, so they decide to have one last party at the house that very soon gets way out of control and eventually the house gets trashed. The majority of the movie is about what goes on at this party and this becomes rather repetitive pretty quickly. There are scenes of people falling through ceilings, paint being injected into an outdoor pool, many scenes of drugged out and drunk behavior and finally a scene of a giant sink hole that drops the pool into the ground. Many of the scenes during this party including the dialogue falls flat and the screenplay, written by a former SNL writer Paula Pell mostly fails at its number one goal, making the audience laugh.

Despite the occasional upsides of this movie and very few laughs, it fails on too many levels to recommend.

Sisters IMDB

Its impossible to believe that in 1977 the first Star Wars movie was released and when it came out many thought at first that this was some average B movie and not a movie that anyone would have considered would be a new form of art or even a new idea that would change the world of movie making. After this first block buster hit in 1977 there were two more Star Wars movies in 1980 and 1983 and then George Lucas the director and creator of this franchise decided to not make any more Star Wars movies for 16 years and then starting in 1999 he made 3 prequels. Most people thought that the 3 prequel Star Wars movies were great with special effects but overall the stories were not up to the quality of the first 3 movies. The first prequel in 1999 had a duck-like character called Jar Jar Binks that many thought was by far the worst idea of the whole series.

After the last Star Wars movie in 2005 “Revenge of the Sith”, George Lucas announced that there would “never be another Star Wars movie”. This was before he sold the franchise to Disney for 4 billion dollars in 2012. (see the other entry about this in this blog).

Now that Disney has Star Wars, many more movies will follow because the story and the money is just too compelling. Human beings all want to believe that there is a great future for humanity in space and ideas like Star Trek and Star Wars enhance this desire to travel to different parts of the universe at “light speed”.

This movie was both directed and written by JJ Abrams and is a very good movie but I thought given the importance of this movie and the return of the Star Wars franchise after 10 long years, this movie could have been better. The story was very good, but not great, the special effects were very good but not great or anything we have not seen before. I also did not agree at all with the decision about one of the characters in this movie which I considered to be short sighted and too tragic for many of the young people who will be seeing this movie. Considering the very young children who will see this latest Star Wars, there is probably too many scenes of violent death, many of which were not necessary. There is a new droid in this 7th movie in the Star Wars series that is essentially two globes that rub together and this robot is far cuter that R2D2, who does make a small cameo appearance towards the end of this movie. This new robot is already a toy available in almost all toy stores and is a major source of comedy relieve in this 2 1/2 hours of action and warring factions of good and evil.

All of the original Star Wars characters from the original series made appearances in this new story except for Yoda, who I am sure will be making an appearance in the next movie as the ending left the door way open for many new releases of Star Wars movies for many more years to come. You had to be in awe of the 2 young starts of this movie Daisy Ridley and John Boyega who won the lottery with this last Star Wars release and the 3 to 5 more films that will follow over the next 10 years. They are as fortunate as the young actors in the Harry Potter series, who will make millions from their salaries and back ended profits from these movies.

This 7th Star Wars movie is a must see for all big fans of Star Wars and all people who just want to see a well made action/adventure movie. Due to the Disney deal with George Lucas the future of the Star Wars story is in good hands and we all can look forward to many movies like this in the future. Hopefully, all the movies will be up to a very high standard which this movie for the most part attains.

Star Wars the Force Awakens IMDB

I was actually surprised when George Lucas accepted a deal with Disney to give away the entire Star Wars franchise in October 2012. I guess everyone has a price, but perhaps Lucas didn’t think through what it was going to be like to see all the things that Disney will do with Star Wars. He might hate the story ideas, or the story arc or even the toys that Disney might sell. Of course the only company in the world that he would sell to would be Disney, but once you sign on the dotted line, your idea that has been yours for 40 years is gone forever.

Everyone is hoping that the new 7th Star Wars movie that opens on December 18, 2015 is going to be an exceptional movie and definitely all owners of Disney stock are hoping for this as well. JJ Abrams, the writer and director of this movie is under a tremendous amount of pressure for this new movie to not only be great and make huge amounts of money, but for him to really succeed this movie has to set all time box office records. From the trailers I have seen it certainly looks like a great movie but the main issue is the story. If This movie has great special effects and a great story, then it will break those box office records. Otherwise it will fall short of what Disney will need to recover that 4 billion dollar deal with Lucas.

George Lucas Disney Deal