Arthur

After being assigned to review Arthur, I tried to watch the 1981 original, and I was unable to handle Dudley Moore’s annoying, over-the-top performance. With this remake, the character of Arthur (Russell Brand) is still insanely inebriated, but he’s far less shrill and much easier to handle. This doesn’t make the movie much better than the original, though, as it is far too melodramatic and riddled with the usual romantic-dramedy contrivances. The jokes are not as raunchy as one would expect from Brand and are rarely funny, mostly falling flat due to an extremely drab script. The romance between Arthur and working-class girl Naomi (Greta Gerwig) actually gets off to a very sweet start, but soon becomes just another rich-boy-falls-for-poor-girl cliché, leaving the viewer bored and waiting for the inevitable happy ending. The only reason to really see the film is to witness Jennifer Garner as Susan, cast completely against type as a gold-digging bitch.