Rated PG-13 for sexual content, some drug references, language and alcohol use throughout
Cast: Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, Jennifer Garner, Geraldine James, Luis Guzman, Nick Nolte
Director: Jason Winer
It's too easy to bash a remake for not being the original. While this new version of the comedy "Arthur" isn't as effective as the 1981 version with Dudley Moore, it isn't awful. And for its first hour, anyway, it's actually quite funny.
The key difference, I think, rests in the two lead actors. It's not so much a question of one being more brilliant than the other. The disparity is evidenced in the genesis of each actor's style of humor. Despite abhorring the nickname "cuddly Dudley," Moore was nonetheless inherently lovable. His genial personality could never be suppressed regardless of the drunken, loutish actions of characters like billionaire sybarite Arthur Bach. It was that winsome persona that made us love him even while laughing at his antics.
Russell Brand is a very skilled comedian as well, although the effectiveness of his humor is entwined with his knack for testing the boundaries of comic taste. Brand's approach to comedy serves him well early on, but when the success of your story hinges on your protagonist's fluent charm, your leading man had better possess it in spades. Moore's personality was effortlessly inviting. When he scaled back on the jokes, our sympathy for his dilemma never dissipated. When Brand scales back here, the movie's pace deadens.
Perhaps I'm being unfair to Brand. After all, he does put forth a solid effort in what can only be described as the most thankless of tasks. Remakes of great movies invite all manner of saliva-drenched polemic. It's a tribute to his gleeful exuberance that the film stays afloat as long as it does.
The billionaire playboy's flamboyant skylarking has become commonplace for the urban elite. We meet Arthur Bach as his Batmobile replica leads a convoy of patrol cars in a high-speed chase down the streets of Manhattan. After being pulled over, the officers are not surprised to see the uber-wealthy smart ass and his driver Bitterman (Luis Guzman) inside, both cloaked in superhero gear.
Arthur spends his nights awash in a sea of licentious behavior and his days plunked in his bathtub to rid himself of the previous night's residue. The rest of the time he spends conjuring up ways to spend money he doesn't know what to do with. (After winning an auction bid for the suit worn by Abraham Lincoln during his second inaugural address, he proceeds to wear the outfit as he exits the auction house.)
Arthur's day-to-day existence falls under the watchful yet increasingly exasperated eye of his trusted "nanny" Hobson. Helen Mirren takes over the role from John Gielgud, who managed to convey a rooting adoration for Arthur behind the most iron-clad, implacable poker face I think I've ever seen in the movies. There's no replacing Gielgud, but Mirren is inspired casting nonetheless.
Arthur's antics have begun to impact the business dealings of his mother (Geraldine James), who summons her son to her office for a chat... a rare occurrence. ("Ah, hello Vivienne..." Arthur greets her. "I remember you when I was living in your womb.") She lays it out for him. He needs to be kept in line, and the first step in this implementation will be to marry her business-savvy but uptight colleague Susan Johnson (Jennifer Garner). If he refuses, he'll be cut off from the family fortune.
He loves the money, loves ostentatious horseplay, but detests the idea of being forced into marriage. His situation becomes more complicated when he actually meets a woman he genuinely has feelings for, the sweet but somewhat melancholic Naomi (Greta Gerwig) whose unrealized dreams of being an author and a need to provide for an ailing father haven't dampened her innocence or hopes for a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. Gerwig offers up a skilled combination of disbelief and surrender toward Arthur's charming yet splashy attempts to woo her.
The director is Jason Winer (ABC's "Modern Family"). Peter Baynham's screenplay adaptation contains a fair share of witty zingers. The movie did make me laugh early on, but as the familiar story arc took control, I felt my sympathy for Arthur and my interest in his situation dwindle in the second half. You just can't manufacture the kind of lovability Moore so easily possessed. It's a good try, though.
* * 1/2 out of * * * * stars
