6A — Monday, November 30, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FILM REVIEW
Giggly ‘Night Before’
By BEN ROSENSTOCK
Daily Arts Writer
Seth Rogen and his writing part-
ner, Evan Goldberg, have had such
a great track record with raunchy
comedy mov-
ies
that
by
now, it seems
difficult
to
know
where
to go next. In
many
ways,
2013’s
“This
is the End,” in
which
Rogen
and his fre-
quent costars
like
Jonah
Hill played fictionalized versions
of themselves during the apoca-
lypse, was the gloriously over-the-
top culmination of Rogen’s steady
growth to comedic fame. Viewers
watched Jonah Hill get raped by a
“Rosemary’s Baby”-esque demon,
and shortly after, the massive crim-
son penis of a CGI-rendered Satan
got sliced in half by a beam trans-
porting Rogen to Heaven. Where
do you go from there?
Judging by his acclaimed work
in “Steve Jobs,” Rogen is following
in Hill’s footsteps and moving into
more dramatic roles. In their new
film “The Night Before,” though,
Rogen and Goldberg thankfully
show that they still have an abun-
dance of heart to lend to raunchy
comedies, even if their well of gut-
busting jokes isn’t as deep as it used
to be.
Primarily scripted by Goldberg
and director Jonathan Levine, who
worked with Rogen and Joseph
Gordon-Levitt in “50/50,” “The
Night Before” tells the story of
three best friends who have cel-
ebrated Christmas together every
year since Ethan’s (Gordon-Levitt,
“The Walk”) parents died. This
year, Ethan finds tickets to the leg-
endary Nutcracker Ball, a mysteri-
ous Christmas party the friends
have been seeking for years, and
the film takes place over the course
of one night as they try to find the
party.
All three leads are given their
own individual character arcs.
Ethan pines after his ex-girlfriend
Diana (Lizzy Caplan, “The Inter-
view”), who broke up with him
because he refused to commit and
meet her parents. Isaac (Rogen),
whose wife (Jillian Bell, “22 Jump
Street”) is expecting a child, strug-
gles to cope with his impending
fatherhood. Chris (Anthony Mack-
ie, “Captain America: The Winter
Soldier”), a steroid-using football
player, enjoys his newfound fame,
though Ethan secretly resents his
shameless self-promotion.
Toward the end of the film,
Ethan becomes furious that his
friends have split up to selfishly
deal with their own problems and
toss aside their Christmas-fueled
camaraderie. Isaac looks for Sarah
(Mindy Kaling, “The Mindy Proj-
ect”), who has the phone where
Isaac recorded his deepest fatherly
insecurities while under the influ-
ence. Chris searches for a crazed
fan who stole from him. Ethan’s
stubborn attempts to secure the
bond that the three friends have
had since high school is a poignant
character motivation, especially
considering Ethan’s dissatisfaction
with his professional and romantic
life. Like Levine’s “50/50,” and like
Rogen and Goldberg’s other films,
“The Night Before” locates its heart
in lasting male friendships, and the
threat of those friendships disinte-
grating provides the conflict for the
movie.
However, “The Night Before”
struggles a bit because of that
same insistence on splitting up the
friends. The screenwriters’ dedica-
tion to giving them individual arcs
necessitates hitting a number of
required beats in each character’s
progression. None of these arcs are
particularly novel; Ethan’s struggle
to grow up and commit and Isaac’s
qualms about fatherhood are both
characteristic of practically every
Rogen character since “Knocked
Up.” One can’t help but imagine an
alternate version of the movie in
which simplistic character motives
are thrown out in favor of a simple
scavenger hunt-style search for the
Nutcracker Ball.
The movie is low on the huge
belly laughs that filled movies like
“This is the End” and “Neighbors.”
Still, it’s consistently giggle-wor-
thy, especially thanks to countless
funny supporting roles, from come-
dians like Caplan, Kaling and Ilana
Glazer (“Broad City”) to surprising
standouts Michael Shannon (“Man
of Steel”) and Miley Cyrus. Mov-
ies like this can often feel lazy, like
they’re just an excuse for a bunch of
comedian friends to hang out — but
when the friends are this funny, it’s
hard to protest.
Aside from heart, what keeps
the comparatively low laugh cali-
ber from being distracting is the
movie’s wicked fast pace. Com-
edies don’t get a lot of praise for
their structure and pacing, but
“The Night Before” is plotted ruth-
lessly. Ethan, Isaac and Chris’s arcs
are woven together well, and small
lines from early on pay off with
big punchlines later in the movie
(especially with a particular char-
acter nicknamed the “Messiah”).
The three main appearances of
Mr. Green (Shannon) especially
showcase this eye for structure. He
evolves from a creepy drug dealer
in a conversation with Chris to an
agent of hallucination for Isaac,
ending as a surprising source of
insight for Ethan. There’s a relent-
less momentum to the film as it
builds towards its inevitable climax
at the Nutcracker Ball, and viewers
remain engaged throughout.
“The Night Before” isn’t a flaw-
less comedy film, and it never really
shocks or challenges audience
perceptions of what a Seth Rogen
movie can be. Still, not every com-
edy needs to feature satanic nudity
and apocalyptic drug trips. Some-
times, Joseph Gordon-Levitt sing-
ing “Wrecking Ball” with Miley
Cyrus is enough.
B+
The Night
Before
Rave &
Quality 16
Columbia Pictures
FILM REVIEW
‘Creed’ a knockout
By JAMIE BIRCOLL
Senior Arts Editor
JACOB RICH
Daily Film Editor
One of the biggest criticisms
of our generation (the “Milenni-
als,” read that with an appropri-
ately derogatory snarl) is that our
art is derivative. Blockbusters,
some would posit, are becoming
less original and are too reliant
on repackaging old stories, char-
acters and franchises and selling
them as new.
We’ve
heard
someone
call
our generation
the
“remix”
generation:
We’re just try-
ing
to
recap-
ture the magic
of “Star Wars,”
Marvel comics
and ’80s action pictures, stuff our
current filmmakers liked when
they were kids.
And yet, “Creed” is something
special,
something
different.
Rather than churn out another
soulless franchise reboot like this
year’s actual horseshit “Termina-
tor Genisys” and “Fantastic Four,”
young director Ryan Coogler
(“Fruitvale Station”) and his crew
created the best kind of sequel,
one that understands exactly what
made the original series so popu-
lar but has something completely
original to say. It’s both literally
and metaphorically about stand-
ing in the shadow of something
great and finding your own iden-
tity in acknowledging the past.
“Creed” stands as a shining exam-
ple of how to iterate with power,
passion and originality.
“Creed” is the story of Adonis
Johnson (Michael B. Jordan,
“Fantastic Four”), the illegitimate
son of deceased “Rocky” cham-
pion Apollo Creed. We begin with
a brief, but powerful vignette
that says more with imagery than
words: a young Adonis (Alex Hen-
derson, “Empire”) is adopted from
juvenile detention by Apollo’s
widow (Phylicia Rashad, “Good
Deeds”) into a life of luxury. The
rags-to-riches narrative of the
original “Rocky” is abandoned
here — it’s not about that anymore.
In its place is a narrative about a
man caught between two worlds:
He can coast through life in luxu-
ry, or strive for something greater
but risk his name overshadowing
his skill and his worth. This is a
thoroughly Millenial narrative.
We follow Adonis as he strives
to create his own legacy as a boxer.
Michael B. Jordan is astounding
here, turning in a performance
that’s visceral and emotional.
He’s paired perfectly with Tessa
Thompson (“Dear White People”)
as love interest and musician Bian-
ca (she produced her own music
for the film), whose own struggle
with degenerative hearing loss, a
war against human deterioration
and the ticking clock, parallels a
boxer’s perfectly.
And Sylvester Stallone (“The
Expendables 3”) turns in his
best performance since the first
“Rocky.” He understands the
mythological
Rocky
character
as a human so deeply, and deftly
meshes the character’s hardship
and grief with his own aging vis-
age. Rocky has been beaten in the
ring, sure, but life has knocked
him down, too, taking his wife
Adrian and friend Paulie. He ritu-
ally visits their graves and reads
them the paper. He lives modest-
ly and honestly, but he seems to
have accepted that his glory days
are behind him, as he awaits the
day he might join his loved ones
in the ground. Gone is the man
who once said, “It ain’t about how
hard you hit. It’s about how hard
you can get hit and keep moving
forward.” It is only the youthful
injection from Adonis that gives
Rocky the spark to keep going.
Stallone, so restrained and con-
templative, gives one of the year’s
finest performances. But excellent
humanistic acting from all per-
formers drives the emotional core
of “Creed” — MBJ, Thompson and
Stallone should all be nominated
for awards for this film.
And that’s to say nothing about
the boxing itself. The midpoint
of “Creed” features the single
most impressively filmed boxing
match the movies have ever seen,
a one-shot masterpiece in visceral
choreography that is pure cin-
ematic magic (meaning we have
no idea how they did it). Cinema-
tographer Maryse Alberti (“The
Wrestler”) also manages to nail
the sportscast-like mise-en-scene
of the original “Rocky” ’s fights in
the climactic bout of “Creed,” a
fight so exciting it repeatedly elic-
ited guttural squeals and “oh-my-
gods” from the filmgoers sitting in
the audience.
The moment of catharsis in
this film is a sequence of rousing
excitement to the level we have
not felt in the cinema in years.
Initially, it parallels the famous
hoodie-sporting run through the
streets of Philadelphia in the orig-
inal “Rocky.” Then, in a cacoph-
ony of roaring minibike engines,
Childish Gambino and Vince
Staples, it blazes its own trail. You
have to witness this.
Early in the film, Adonis sits in
his mother’s mansion and plays
old clips of the Balboa-Creed
fights on YouTube through a pro-
jector. He rises, approaches the
screen and assumes a fighter’s
stance, and then he shadowboxes
his father. “Creed” strings togeth-
er two hours and 15 minutes
of images like these: powerful,
emotional, human. There is not a
second of this film that is wasted.
Every shot is beautiful. Every line
is meaningful. It’s romantic. It’s
brutal. It’s honest.
“Creed” is a film about pur-
pose that justifies itself. Against
insurmountable odds, Adonis and
Coogler make names for them-
selves.
And just consider this: “Creed”
is so good that it took two writers
to review it.
A
Creed
Rave &
Quality 16
Warner Bros.
/ MGM