Look, I’m not sure what to tell you. There is a point when a movie is not reviewable, and this applies to Think Like A Man Too. Is it above reprisal? Is it so far beneath my standards, it isn’t worth rubbing the brain cells together? Well, it’s neither, but this is not a film made to be reviewed. This is an empty seats film. The success of the first film, plus the budget of the new film, offset by the number of potential seats to be filled with a sequel is the premise of this film, and nothing more. A film engineered to be as efficient as viral marketing and sustaining as fast food, Think Like a Man Too is not bad or good, but simply exists.
So you’re a young, attractive, and ridiculously successful group of friends. What do you do? You get married in Vegas! And on this foundational trope, they build a super-structure of every wedding weekend cliché ever. Yes, in perhaps the film’s most impressive feat, all of them are accounted for. With everything from the ill-advised bachelor/bachelorette party the night before the wedding, to the will they make the wedding scramble, to the pregnant pause after the ultimate wedding ceremony fabrication of, “any objections,” this film is loaded down with weightlessness.
The arc is stitched together with a clumsy voiceover narrative device equating the weekend to a basketball game. Because, get it, all these couples are a team. And they’ve got…like…teamwork stuff to figure out. This chunky, overly long, too frequently employed voiceover is delivered by the philosophical and symbolic head of the film, Kevin Hart. Having mastered the art of being relentless in his likeable unlikeableness—or is it unlikeable likeableness [?]—there is no more apt engine for Think Like a Man Too. At times the other actors seems to suffer around him. Not by way of diminished performances, but actually suffering as they watch him gobble down all the scenery leaving even less to work with than the script allows.
The actresses are beautiful, Gabrielle Union in particular as stunning as ever. The men are chiseled, one-dimensional man children, save the sensitive type played by Michael Ealy, as per the accords of RomCom signed into Hollywood law eons ago. The cast emotes when appropriate, each couple has their quiet moments, but most commendably, they act as the tracks trying to support the roaring Kevin Hart train. Complete with celebrity cameos—including an exceptional turn from stentorian voiced Dennis Haysbert--Think Like a Man Too has it all, as long as your after nothing more than what you’d expect.
One observation I noted is the broadly drawn white friends featured in the film. Within the core group is the dowdiest, squarest suburban white couple as played by Wendi McLendon-Covey and Gary Owen. There is also another gag involving two other white actors decent enough not to spoil, including one of the funnier exchanges in the film. Where Think Like a Man Too is geared toward audiences tired of the all-white wealth and romance myth as told by so many RomComs, it was a wasted opportunity to use characters as shabbily created as the roles long given to people of color in this same genre.
Ultimately Think Like a Man Too lives in a world impregnable to criticism. This film will hit with its audience, perhaps yield a third installment, and the copy spilled will continue to be the needless hand wringing on which movie reviewers pride themselves. Because if Think Like a Man Too makes any argument, it’s to think less, because film’s like this are certainly not going to try and do more.
--Monte Monreal
So you’re a young, attractive, and ridiculously successful group of friends. What do you do? You get married in Vegas! And on this foundational trope, they build a super-structure of every wedding weekend cliché ever. Yes, in perhaps the film’s most impressive feat, all of them are accounted for. With everything from the ill-advised bachelor/bachelorette party the night before the wedding, to the will they make the wedding scramble, to the pregnant pause after the ultimate wedding ceremony fabrication of, “any objections,” this film is loaded down with weightlessness.
The arc is stitched together with a clumsy voiceover narrative device equating the weekend to a basketball game. Because, get it, all these couples are a team. And they’ve got…like…teamwork stuff to figure out. This chunky, overly long, too frequently employed voiceover is delivered by the philosophical and symbolic head of the film, Kevin Hart. Having mastered the art of being relentless in his likeable unlikeableness—or is it unlikeable likeableness [?]—there is no more apt engine for Think Like a Man Too. At times the other actors seems to suffer around him. Not by way of diminished performances, but actually suffering as they watch him gobble down all the scenery leaving even less to work with than the script allows.
The actresses are beautiful, Gabrielle Union in particular as stunning as ever. The men are chiseled, one-dimensional man children, save the sensitive type played by Michael Ealy, as per the accords of RomCom signed into Hollywood law eons ago. The cast emotes when appropriate, each couple has their quiet moments, but most commendably, they act as the tracks trying to support the roaring Kevin Hart train. Complete with celebrity cameos—including an exceptional turn from stentorian voiced Dennis Haysbert--Think Like a Man Too has it all, as long as your after nothing more than what you’d expect.
One observation I noted is the broadly drawn white friends featured in the film. Within the core group is the dowdiest, squarest suburban white couple as played by Wendi McLendon-Covey and Gary Owen. There is also another gag involving two other white actors decent enough not to spoil, including one of the funnier exchanges in the film. Where Think Like a Man Too is geared toward audiences tired of the all-white wealth and romance myth as told by so many RomComs, it was a wasted opportunity to use characters as shabbily created as the roles long given to people of color in this same genre.
Ultimately Think Like a Man Too lives in a world impregnable to criticism. This film will hit with its audience, perhaps yield a third installment, and the copy spilled will continue to be the needless hand wringing on which movie reviewers pride themselves. Because if Think Like a Man Too makes any argument, it’s to think less, because film’s like this are certainly not going to try and do more.
--Monte Monreal
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