If you had to, off the top of your head, name 10 Eddie Murphy movies, “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” (2002) probably wouldn’t make the list. I get that. But while it’s no “Coming to America,” it’s not terrible (did I just write that sentence?). Pluto is a cleaned-up con man who runs a lunar nightclub in 2090 or so. A bigger criminal puts the muscle on him, and Rat Pack-style, shoot-some-guns, help-some-pals, get-the-girl, robot-assisted, autonomous-vehicle, box-office-bomb hijinks ensue. The film exudes sprezzatura (look it up) and Murphy is a 21st century Dean Martin. Fly me to the moon indeed.
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The Simpson-Bruckheimer action recipe is like cinematic comfort food for the adrenaline starved. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence serve up an explosive bowl of macaroni and cheese in “Bad Boys for Life” (2020). Twenty-five years after the first installment of the franchise, cars still explode at the slightest provocation, guns still have unlimited bullets and helicopters still helicopt. Also, bad guys still can’t shoot worth a damn and story lines still take a backseat to blowing shit up. This time Smith’s Mike Lowrey has some kind of Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader thing going on. Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter.
In 2003, Marvel wasn’t a Universe and movie special effects weren’t scarily surreal. Those are two reasons “Daredevil” misses the mark, but they’re more like excuses. Nobody had to make the writing so ham-fisted and nobody had to make Ben Affleck a ridiculously computer-aided cross between Batman and Spiderman. Jennifer Garner’s Elektra is reduced to sugarless eye candy and Colin Farrell’s Bullseye comes off as some kind of crazy Irish Andre Agassi. And the courtroom scenes (Affleck’s a lawyer by day) are as preposterous as the special effects. Hopefully, he didn’t represent himself when he divorced Garner in real life.
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