‘Congratulations on your massive pack of lies…’
Is it possible to sit through a film for 90 minutes and feel absolutely nothing? Yes, is the answer. I’d rather really hate something then just leave the cinema feeling like a blank, unfeeling, gelatinous blob. As this very website attests to, I hated The Mothman Prophecies with the ferocity of a thousand suns. I despised Die Hard 5. Antichrist made me furious. But at least they made me feel something… Man Up did not of that. It exists for an hour and a half, and then it ends. Nothing is learned. Nothing has changed. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t cry. I was never fully bored, nor did any of it make me angry. Instead, it simply is. And that sure as hell ain’t enough…
When Nancy (Lake Bell) accidentally takes someone’s place on a blind date with Jack (Simon Pegg), things go better than expected. Then much worse. And then better again. Roll credits.
Look, it’s not all terrible. Bell is pretty good in this movie, and she delivers perhaps the greatest example of an American doing a British accent ever. Pegg is pretty annoying, but he’s mostly fine. The supporting cast all try their best. But there is just nothing here. Like absolutely nothing. Nothing. I didn’t root for, nor dislike these characters. I felt like Mr Spock. No matter how much I squinted, there was no suggestion that I would recognise anything that was happening onscreen as something that was relevant to my life, or anyone else’s life for that matter.
In every sense of the word, Man Up is a nothing movie. For nobody. Please don’t watch it.