“We’re the Millers” isn’t really a bad movie, but it’s a completely forgettable one.
Review by David Feltman
“Just stick to the big A.”
With a premise that crosses “Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke” with “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” “We’re the Millers” seems to guarantee a few laughs. Jason Sudeikis plays a loser drug dealer who recruits a fake family to help him smuggle an RV full of weed across the border. The jokes just write themselves, right?
Despite the giant pot MacGuffin, there’s not one stoner joke in the whole film. The movie leans instead on raunch and gross out humor, which isn’t a bad thing. But there’s a definite paucity of solid jokes and, seriously, there’s an RV full of pot right there. While there are some really funny moments, including an incestuous make out session and an unfortunately located tarantula bite, “We’re the Millers” relies too often on the sentimental mush that most comedic filmmakers only trot out to hang their jokes on. Fake son doesn’t know how to talk to girls, fake daughter makes a poor dating decision, blah, blah, blah and suddenly the drug dealer, the stripper and the homeless girl are in an episode of “Leave it to Beaver.” It’s probably a bad sign that the script sports a total of four writing credits.
“We’re the Millers” isn’t really a bad movie, but it’s a completely forgettable one. You would think that when director Rawson Thurber saw that all of the funniest bits were in the outtakes that he would have ordered one more rewrite. Or maybe he did and just gave up after the forth one. Considering Seth Rogen’s “This is the End” is just leaving theaters and Edgar Wright’s “The World’s End” is on its way later this August, there are better ways to spend your summer movie dollars.
