Suddenly, Simon Pegg has a lot riding on his upcoming trek aboard the USS Enterprise.
Pegg, so endearing in “Sean of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” suffered his second straight box office dud late last year with “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People.”
The actor, who fills Scotty’s shoes in the upcoming “Star Trek” reboot, needs to remind audiences what a curious crowd pleaser he can be in the right vehicle.
His latest, out on DVD today, will do nothing of the sort.
Pegg stars as Sidney Young, a journalist who manages to snag a plum gig at a posh magazine. So far, so promising, even if an early bit involving a runaway pig belongs in a second-tier Fox sitcom.
He immediately rubs his new boss (Jeff Bridges playing the Meryl Streep/”Devil Wears Prada” role) the wrong way, but fumbles his way past his boorish behavior. He does the same with his new fetching colleague (played by the winning Kirsten Dunst), but he’s too busy trying to bed a hot young starlet (Megan Fox) to care.
But is Sidney a fame whore, a dedicated scribe or something in between? It all depends on what scene you’re watching. Clearly, the film’s editing process got hijacked along the way.
Blame the film for shoehorning screwball comedy into nearly every dull moment. Sidney wouldn’t last a day at the Weekly World News, let alone this Vanity Fair style mag – the film is based on a memoir by a VF survivor.
“Friends” manages a few snippets of satirical whimsy, and the cast manages to rise above some tepid material. Still, it’s hardly shocking to mock fame, celebrity and hero worshiping magazines at this point.
Pegg needed every ounce of his charm to make “Run Fatboy Run” palatable, but there’s nothing he can do to make “How to Lose Friend” a winning comedy.
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