PLEASE DON’T DESTROY: THE TREASURE OF FOGGY MOUNTAIN (2023)
Tagline: There's No Going Back to Normal
(Dark Comedy, Drama, Well At Least That Falcon Showed Up) [R]
Dear God, please save me from this terrible trip with my two awful friends…
In this one, three friends have started to drift apart even though they live together. Martin has a new girlfriend; Ben is about to take over his father’s outdoor store. All of this is too much for John, so he basically talks Ben and Martin into going to look for a treasure said to be buried in a nearby mountain. Along the way they run into park rangers Lisa and Taylor who realize the three friends have a map of the treasure, a forest cult, and the elements of Foggy Mountain.
First off, there are some pretty bad lines in this poking fun at Catholics and Christians but I kind of expect that in secular films. One of the issues here is that it becomes a sadistic childish theme throughout, it’s not just one or two jokes. This is also another movie where the writer or writers apparently can’t figure out another way to express themselves besides using profanity like they were given a quota they needed to hit. Setting that aside, there are some pretty funny sequences in this but sadly they are few and far between.
Acting-wise we get Martin Herlihy (HUBI HALLOWEEN) as Martin. He was also one of the writers apparently along with the next two actors I am mentioning. This probably explains why Saturday Night Live (SNL) has become nearly unwatchable at times. John Higgins (A MAN CALLED OTTO) plays John and is really the only character that gets some character growth here. He is also a writer for SNL, so you can see a theme here. Ben Marshall shows up as Ben. That’s all I have to say about that. It seems like his character was an afterthought. He also writes for SNL. Conan O'Brien (NOW YOU SEE ME) who I usually like plays Farley. He has some good lines in this, but he’s also got some terrible lines. Megan Stalter plays a kind of likable Lisa who seems to have a heart but also has her own issues. Stalter does fine in the role for what they asked her to do. X Mayo (THE BLACKENING) plays Taylor in this. Her character is cringy for most of the film, but I liked her better in this than in THE BLACKENING. We also have a vastly underutilized Sunita Mani (SAVE YOURSELVES!) who plays Tricia. She might have 3 lines in the whole movie, but she’s extremely talented.
On top of the issues I have mentioned, there are also some weird lines in here implying that things that have nothing to do with racism are, while also being borderline racist and probably not even intending it. I have no idea what is going on with this script. It seems like it was written by AI or someone who did a lot of drugs. Not saying it was because I just told you who wrote it, but it’s just that disjointed. The ending fight scene is pretty cool but could have been so much more fun than what we got. Then of course the script dives right back into being total trash. Another huge problem with this movie is a lot of the comedic delivery isn’t given any time to breathe. It’s like they had the cast practicing how to speed-read all of their lines and sing like crap.
Cinematically this thing is fine. I also didn’t mind the soundtrack or score and thought a lot of what they did here worked in that regard.
Overall I can’t recommend this one; it would be like recommending mind cancer. This is definitely one of the worst films of 2023 and seems to be aimed at no one. The best character is a CGI falcon that gets about 3 minutes of screen time.
This one gets a 2 out of 7.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF APATOW PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
Comments
Post a Comment