The Blues Brothers (1980)
Directed by John Landis
Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.
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What critics compared The Blues Brothers to
The plot is cribbed from The Blues Brothers, a clever ploy to rope in the same demographic that transferred their childhood Stoogemania to Jake and Elwood Blues in the 1980s.
The plot is a combination of The Blues Brothers and Fletch with a little “Jersey Shore” thrown in for … well, there’s never a good reason to include “Jersey Shore” is there?
Somewhat akin to Jake and Elwood needing to raise money to save an orphanage in "The Blues Brothers," our dimwitted trio -- played by Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso -- go out into the real world to find enough funds to keep their orphanage open.
But in this film, they lazily borrow the premise of “The Blues Brothers” (they have to raise money to keep the orphanage that has been their home since they were abandoned there as infants decades ago) and become entangled in a murder plot and “Jersey Shore.”
They also blatantly lift from the plots of both " The Blues Brothers " and " Beavis and Butthead Do America " (the story has the Stooges trying to raise money to save their beloved orphanage, and running afoul of a contract-killing scheme in the dumb process), neither of which is an entirely inapposite comic model, so that's OK.
You would think that after having been wrestling with the project for than a decade that the Farrellys and co-writer Mike Cerrone might have been able to come up with a narrative that didn't consist of roughly 70% old bits and pieces cribbed directly from routines seen in the original Stooges shorts and the remaining 30% ported over from "The Blues Brothers."
This may make “Baby Driver” seem like a bizarre combination of the Walter Hill’s enigmatic car chase classic “The Driver” (Hill even makes a cleverly disguised cameo appearance) and the immortal musical/car-crash hybrid “The Blues Brothers” but it has a lot more going on for it than just that.
A souped-up fun machine of heists, first love and action-comedy smarts, Baby Driver sees Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright filling his tank with gas from the genre classics (The Driver, The Blues Brothers) and then speeding off with the soundtrack cranked all the way up to unforgettable.
The car chases seen here are some of the best seen on film, harkening back to the great car chases of film yore such as Bullitt, The French Connection and The Blues Brothers, and resulting in a ballet of burnt rubber and screeching tyres.
The result is a supercharged piece of fun unlike any motorized choreography since John Landis destroyed a fleet of cop cars in The Blues Brothers.
Moments after it begins, a red turbocharged Subaru is dancing through downtown Atlanta, leading police cruisers on a manic, destructive chase that feels like the spiritual successor of 1980’s “The Blues Brothers.”
The way she precisely balances out Fieldstein’s manic energy and Devers thin veneer of calm is reminiscent of how John Landis handled Belushi and Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers.
What follows is a mostly entertaining, sometimes goofy and often funny road trip flick that combines elements from the original film (actually most of them and the TV show) with the plot of "The Blues Brothers" (needing to reassemble the band to raise money to save a building via a big concert at the end).
If you've seen "The Blues Brothers," you're familiar with the plot of "The Muppets."
But it’s a thrill meeting each Muppet member again, who, like The Blues Brothers, are in various hilariously reduced circumstances.
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…and the prissy American Nazi leader in The Blues Brothers…
Our mismatched duo rather accidentally wind up becoming famous fugitives, and “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” blossoms into a boisterous outdoor adventure, nodding to influences as disparate as “Up” and “The Blues Brothers” while maintaining a distinctly handcrafted, funky vibe all its own.
McKay (mostly) pulls off something kind of fascinating here: He's made a huge comedy that ruthlessly rips on corporate corruption through a lens of absurdist gags while mounting reasonably credible action scenes, including a climactic chase clearly meant as an homage to the epic conclusion of "The Blues Brothers."
The showoff cops played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, who get the movie going with an amusing car pile-up not seen since The Blues Brothers, would have provided greater balance and a real rooting interest when set against the Ferrell/Wahlberg “other guys.”
Instead, I’ll concentrate on the way Lin stages the scene, which may be the most singularly destructive demolition derby since John Landis laid waste to half of Chicago in The Blues Brothers.
It's gleefully ridiculous, as if you're suddenly watching the climax of "The Blues Brothers."
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But the film loses it with strained references to "Titanic," "The Blues Brothers" and even the incest documentary "Capturing the Friedmans."
"Lucy," Luc Besson's cautionary thriller about the dangers of being too smart, is a breathless piece of stylized sci-fi action inspired by graphic novels, M-rated video games and classic car chases from "The Blues Brothers" and "To Live and Die in L.A."