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Starring
Jada Pinkett and Davidson |
WooIN SHORT: What a stinker!
Sometimes Cranky wishes he was working for one of those big shot magazines that grade their movie reviews A-F. Then again, he'd probably get too clever and grade Woo, the wannabe funny, wannabe sexy, blind date mismatch of the century story a "B" -- for Bad Continuity and Script -- instead of the "F" it has rightfully earned.
But Mother's Day is fast approaching and Cranky's mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Which would leave: "Jada Pinkett is lovely" and about eight inches of blank space.
It isn't that Woo wasn't funny to Cranky because it's demographically aimed at African-Americans and Cranky is MOT. All the black reviewers were walking out of the screening room muttering "oy," just like Cranky. The screenplay, by David C. Johnson, lifts jokes out of old Woody Allen movies, a slimmer of character development from an old Kim Basinger starrer, another gag out of a Joe Pesci flick and reveals a fondness for bad Blue Oyster Cult songs -- thus the presence of a supporting character named Celestial, a queen (ie. transvestite played by a real life tv named Girlina) psychic/tarot card reader and clothes designer.
The sitch: Tim is a repressed, strait laced law clerk. One of those "nice guys" who never get any. He's got a manipulative ex- girlfriend for whom he has cosigned a car loan, on an expensive car. His three boys (for you non-rappers, that means "friends") are all immature, degenerate a'holes as is his horny friend Lennie (Dave Chappelle), who's been waiting a week to do the nasty with his wife. Lennie fixes Tim up with his wife's cousin, Woo, to get said woman out of the house. Lemme tell you more about Tim. He's so inept he needs love advice from the all too cool, slick neighbor next door, Darryl (LL Cool J). Darryl has got two maybe three women hanging off him at all times. He's flush with cash. He's the kind of character Tim should be contacting again and again as the evening goes down the toilet. But it's a one time useless cameo and a waste of time. Lemme tell you about Woo. She is almost literally on a first name basis with everyone else in New York. She knows where the parties are. She knows where the hidden after hours clubs are. She is constantly changing her party gear -- which is a good trick since she only brought one change of clothes and turns a dress into a pair of pants and then a miniskirt. Her personality is manic going on homicidal. Which means, of course, that she and Tim are the perfect match.
Johnson's script provides layers of stereotypes on top of layers of stereotypes. Black people come off just as badly as the occasional white person. It is ineptly directly by Daisy V.S. Mayer, who has no eye or memory for continuity either of prop or story or scene. If Woo is a New Yorker, why does she have to be unloaded by Lennie? If she's an out of towner, how is it that she knows everyone in town right down to the Italian cop in the ghetto precinct?
Oh . . . the pain, the pain . . .
Lemme think . . . what else sucks about Woo? Well, just about everything. Not even an uncredited appearance by Billy Dee Williams can save this pile of turkey droppings.
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks.Were Cranky able to set his own price to Woo, he would have paid . . .
$0.00
Most of the laughter and applause Cranky heard in the screening he attended was mixed in the surround soundtrack. Pass this sucker by and forget it ever existed.