Customer Reviews

Stuck On You (Full Screen Edition)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

"Stuck On You" is a movie where half of the funniest parts are in the trailer. But as is almost always the case in a Farrelly Brothers comedy, you come for the outrageous comedy and then get a healthy helping of heart because underneath all the "hair gel" and fat suits these guys are trying to make love stories. The Farrelly Brothers might be two of the biggest romantics making movies today. This is not one of their best films, but it does have its moments.

In case you somehow missed the trailer "Stuck On You" is about Bo (Matt Damon) and Walter (Greg Kinnear) are a conjoined twins, what someone indelicately calls Siamese twins in the film despite the fact that the boys are American. The fundamental gag here is that they being joined together like this makes them twice as good as anybody else. You might be able to outrun a one legged man, but these guys have four legs so forget about it. They run a burger joint at Martha's Vineyard, work crossword puzzles together, and play goalie for their amateur team. About the only thing they do not do together is that Walter likes to act while Bo, who gets stage fright, has been e-mailing a girl in California for three years. Walt wants to be an actor and talks Bo into heading for California, where people are not as accommodating towards the strange pair as they are back in Massachusetts.

Once again the Farrelly Brothers are dealing with a subject that would not be considered politically correct, but after dealing with other personal afflictions and handicaps in their earlier films, this is hardly a surprise. But they have such affection for their characters that you end up thinking that there is something wrong with people who do not find this humor funny. Bo and Walter do not consider themselves handicapped and they are so proficient at everything they do it is hard to fault them for their sense of self-assuredness.

The funniest bits in this film, as the trailer indicated, are when the boys play sports. Baseball, football, hockey, or boxing, you do not want to mess with these boys, and when Walter wants to be an actor the stars align so that he gets to co-star with Cher in a television series. The joke actually ends up being on Cher, who thought that acting with a conjoined twin would get her out of her contract.

Meanwhile, Bo finally gets to meet his online pen pal, May (Wen Yann Shih), but he is too shy to tell her that there is a reason Walter is always there on his left. Helping the boys keep their secret is April (Eva Mendes), who knows how things work in Southern California and who takes one look at the bridge of flesh joining the brothers and wants to know where they got it done. But eventually the truth comes out and the boys are seriously considering having the surgery that will allow them to live separate lives. Of course, we already know that not even surgery can really separate these two.

Cher is not the only Oscar winning actress who shows she is a good sport in this film, because Meryl Streep is also along for the ride. As is usually the case in a Farrelly Brothers film, they work in people they have met who are not stars like Jack Nicholson. This time around it is Ray "Rocket" Valliere, a mentally challenged friend of the brothers who plays a waiter in the burger joint. Be sure to watch the credits where he thanks everybody for getting to make film. Critics keep wanting to take the Farrellys to task for making jokes about handicapped people, but they are never making fun of them and in the end "Stuck On You" is just another one of their love stories.

The Farrelly brothers must be going soft in their middle age. Despite the fact that they've never replicated the near-perfection of "Kingpin" and "There's Something About Mary", they don't seem to mind. Their last two films, "Shallow Hal" and now "Stuck On You", both deal with issues of family, love, and what we consider "wierd" in a person in honest and occasionally touching ways. "Stuck on You", however is much better than "Shallow Hal".

The film is about two conjoined twins, Walt(Greg Kinnear) and Bob(Matt Damon), who live in Martha's Vineyard where everyone sees them as normal. They are conjoined at the waist, sharing a liver. They could have been sperated with Walt being perfectly normal, but Walt would only of had a 50/50 chance at living. Bob refused to let his brother take that chance. They run a burger joint in town, and while Bob is the athelete, Walt is an aspiring actor. Bob can't act and suffers from panic attacks. What's great about this setup is that everyone knows Bob and Walt and knows that they're perfectly normal. They're sensitive about being called "freaks" of course, but they are fiercely independent. Walt, however, has a dream of being a real actor, and since they promised each other they would never hold the other back, they head to Hollywood to look for fame.

Obviously, things don't come easy for the pair, and the film followd their various failures. They have an agent who last worked in real Hollywood perhaps 30 years ago, hilariously played by Seymoure Cassell. The first job he gets them is on a porn film. Then, after a run-in with Cher, who wants out of a TV deal she has to make, Walt gets a break as her costar in "Honey and the Beaze". Walt really is a good actor, and as usual the brothers charm everyone they meet, and the show is a surprise hit, which infuriates Cher.

The film is buoyed by the inherent humanity in all of the characters. Hardly any one of them is portrayed in a put-down way. Eva Mendes plays a silcone filled wannabe actress, and while she's kinda dumb, she's also sweet and never used by the Faralley's in the ovbious way other directors would. Bob is in love with May, an internet sweerheart who doesn't know about his attachment to his brother. She is played with some skill by Wen Yann Shih, and she strikes the perfect balance needed in the twisted world of teh Faralleys. Walt and Bob are also very real. They're human, they love each other, they just happen to share a liver. The acting from Damon and Kinnear here is absurd. The previews for this film seem to imply the two are dumb, which they aren't. They're about as complex a pair that you'd find in a screwball comedy.

The Faralley's have come a long way from the out and out grossness of "Dumb & Dumber" which was just a gross-out comedy. After a rocky start in "Shallow Hal", they've successfully transitioned from full gross-out humor to a more PG-13 sensibility. While sometimes their message of accepting those different from us is pounded a little to hard, "Stuck on You" manages to be both very funny and touching at the same time. All this from the guys who gave us the zipper scene in "Something About Mary". What range. I never would have guessed. "Stuck on You" is mightily enterianing, endearing, and hilarious.

Apparently a lot of people are talking about the version of 'Summertime' that Greg Kinnear sings at the end of the movie. There is a discussion about this on musicsearch.com and a Google search on '"Stuck On You" AND Summertime AND Greg Kinnear' turns up several references. According to the extras on the DVD, Greg Kinnear DOES sing, although he's probably lip synching to his own studio version. The song is a pretty close rendition of Billy Stewart's version of 'Summertime' by George Gershwin from his musical 'Porgy & Bess'. Awesome rendition!

I'm a huge fan of Peter & Bobby Farrelly (except for Osmosis Jones that was trash) and I was satisfied with this new movie.
Bob and Walt Tenor(Matt Damon & Greg Kinnear) are two brothers who own a restraunt in Marthas Vineyard and are happy with their life of being conjoined twins,but when Walt wants to be an actor and go to Hollywood,things change a little bit.After going to Hollywood and finding no luck,Walt is spotted by Cher who has a contract with a show that she hates called "Honey and the Beaze"
and hires Walt as the co-star in order to drop ratings,however her plan backfires and the ratings just go up.However,Bob doesn't enjoy the Hollywood lifestyle and would rather be back at Marthas Vineyard at the restraunt.But by now Walt has become a star and "Honey and the Beaze" is a hit.The movie which is funny but not terrific also has some heart,the movie is not just a comedy but also a look at a bond between two brothers.Although
Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear obviously look nothing alike they are cast perfectly in the role of Bob and Walt.I really enjoyed the film and I hope you do as well.

I rented this DVD simply to see how bad it could possibly be, and had every expectation to be thoroughly, entirely bored and wishing the movie would end thirty minutes into it. Imagine my surprise when I found that I was laughing, and when I wasn't laughing, I was enjoying the setup, and especially the camaraderie of Kinnear and Damon. Seeing the two of them in the trailers, and just trying to imagine them working together didn't fly in my mind. Yet on screen they played off each other quite well.

The premise of the movie is described in other reviews, as well as the Editorial Review, so I won't regurgitate any of that information here.

Were the situations preposterous? Sure they were. Conjoined twins running a burger shack, working with an efficiency that would make Ford Motor Company jealous is implausible - but that was O.K., because it worked. I didn't view the scene where they worked hard to prepare a gargantuan feast in under 3 minutes and think to myself, "God, this just doesn't work". Instead, I chuckled.

Cher did a great parody of herself - come on, dating Frankie Muniz? That was hysterical.

Sure, the movie was simple, and had a simple plot - two people come to terms with who they really are. But in the simplest stories we usually find the brightest gems, and I thought this really was a gem. My roommate disagreed. He fell asleep. So yes, I understand that many didn't find some of the physical humor funny and some may even have found it offensive. I didn't.

The Farrelly brothers have a knack for producing films (SHALLOW HAL, DUMB AND DUMBER, KINGPIN) about awkward subjects in a manner such that they'd be taken to task for political incorrectness if the results weren't so funny.

In STUCK ON YOU, Bo (Matt Damon) and Walt (Greg Kinnear) are the owners of a Martha's Vineyard burger joint in which they also do the cooking. This doesn't sound like the basis for much of a plot except that Bo and Walt are twins conjoined above the hip. They share a liver, most of which belongs to Bo - a situation that has so far caused them to reject the surgical separation that would perhaps endanger Walt's life. In any case, they'd decided long ago that their condition wouldn't hold them back. So, when Walt announces that he wants to go to Hollywood and become an actor, Bo decides to go along (so to speak). Of apparent benefit to Bo is that his internet girlfriend, May (Wen Yann Shih), lives in Los Angeles. There are problems though. Bo has acute stage fright, and he's never even told May that he has a brother. Walt, however, firmly believes that everything will work out. He even suggests that Bo can be his stunt double so he, Walt the Star, won't get hurt.

While watching this clever and highly entertaining comedy, I was impressed by the amount of movement choreography and rehearsal that must have been necessary for Damon and Kinnear to act in concert in some very intricate ways. This is apparent as we watch the twins cook-up six burgers in 3 minutes to meet their restaurant's standing promise ("Food in 3 minutes, or it's free!"), play baseball, ice hockey, and football, slow dance with dates, and beat up on a a group of harassers. Then there's the bit when they get into a fist fight with each other that's worth the price of admission.

Several screen personalities appear as themselves, most notably Cher and Meryl Streep. The former pokes great fun at her real life public persona. In my opinion, Cher is to be admired and applauded for evidently not taking herself too, too seriously. I can't imagine most of Tinseltown's prima donnas taking similar swipes at their overblown images.

Awhile ago, I saw CALENDAR GIRLS, to which I granted five stars simply because it was unpretentious, pure entertainment that left me completely satisfied and with a grin on my face. At the risk of cheapening the 5-star rating, I'm awarding STUCK ON YOU the same. It's not a great film and likely won't be nominated for any Oscars but, you know, great good fun in any form shouldn't be over-analyzed by snobbish reviewing. Life is too short.

Sometimes I can't help but embrace the obvious pun!

Truth be told, the Farrelly brothers are hit and miss for me. I enjoy some of their comedies, love other and then despise a few. `Stuck on You', much like `There's Something About Mary', gets enough right to keep me more than entertained, and more than willing to sit through it again and again. It has the right balance of absurdity and sincerity to make it even a little heartwarming.

The film tells of two conjoined twins, Bob and Walt. They are joined at the hip, literally. They are cooks at a burger place but soon find themselves uprooted and Walt decides he wants to be an actor. So, off they go to Hollywood. Bob and Walt are extremely supportive of each other and truly endeared to one another. But, as the pressure mounts it becomes evident that living the same life can only get them so far.

It may be time to cut the fat, so-to-speak.

The film is a delightful mix of humor and heart, and the acting here really fills the screen. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear are wonderful as the conjoined brothers. Damon manages to portray the wariness of Bob without making him weepy or annoying, and Kinnear is comedic gold as the self-absorbed yet completely likable Walt. Cher gets major points for playing herself with sass and wit. She has never been this hilarious, for she really gets the whole point behind her inclusion in the film. Eva Mendes is also nice here (and pretty nice to look at too).

In the end, while not perfect (it doesn't ALWAYS work), this is a comedy that most will readily enjoy. It is one of those `stupid' comedies that embraces its genre and embellishes with charm, wit and memorable performances.

So what if it is absurd, it's also a whole lot of fun!

A very intelligent and funny movie. I was pleasently surprised by the inventive humour

When I first saw the previews I thought this movie would be stupid, but the movie proved otherwise. The Farhley brothers are great at bringing to life the characters and making the audience laugh at the same time. This movie is no exception. It focuses more on the characters, but there are still some good laughs. I really got to feel for the characters and cared what happened to them at the end, and I know many of my friends agree.It's a good date movie. Both sexes will like it, becuase it is funny and compelling.

This is a touching and rather moving gentle comedy starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as Bob and Walt Tenor, a pair of conjoined twins who are determined to live normal lives to the full despite their condition and the consequent lengths they have to go to support each other's very different ambitions. Walt is the extrovert who wants to be an actor and comedian: Bob is introverted and shy, though a keen sportsman.

As young children Walt and Bob had made each other a promise that neither of them would ever try to hold the other back, and the film is about the lengths they have to go to to keep that promise. At the start of the story they are running a successful fast food outlet in Martha's Vineyard, but early on Walt persuades Bob that they should move to Hollywood to follow Walt's ambition to become a film star. At first nobody takes them seriously, but through a ludicrous series of chances Walt does get a chance at a TV role, and then the difficulties really start.

While Walt is trying to build an acting career, Bob is trying to find romance with his internet pan pal, played by Wen Yann Shih, who is unaware of the fact that he is half of a set of conjoined twins.

Although the film does not shy away from occasional, mostly gentle, jokes about the consequences of the twin's condition, I did not feel that this film was cruel about conjoined twins or people with disability generally. The film was far more scathing about people who saw the brothers as freaks. It presents them as a pair of regular guys who are coping heroically with an unusual set of circumstances.

The rest of the cast was superb. Several Hollywood or TV personalities play themselves, including Cher, Meryl Streep, and Jay Leno - Cher in particular has some outrageous scenes taking the mickey out of herself. Eva Mendes, looking stunning, gives a lift to the film as a cheerful wannabee actress who becomes a supportive friend of the brothers.

There are a few weak or embarrassing moments but overall this is a moving and entertaining film and I can recommend it.