"The Campaign" Movie Review

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                 Today's review is of "The Campaign", a new comedy starring Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell. It is also directed by the famous Jay Roach. It is about two quirky politicians that are rivals against one another, who happen to be running for a spot as congressman in a district in North Carolina. "The Campaign" was one of my most anticipated comedy's of the summer, mainly because the trailer was actually one of the few comedic trailers that made me laugh out loud numerous times. I do like Will Ferell in certain movies, a lot of them are funny, but then again, I don't like them much. Zach Galifianakis, who I think is very talented repeats himself a lot in the roles he portrays. The trailer looked decieving, it looked like a different role for both of them. I was waiting to see how this movie tackles the subject of politics. Unfortanately, after seeing it, this movie really is just another Will Ferrell flop. Zach Galifianakis' character is a little bit different, but it is too much alike Alan Garner from "The Hangover". This time, he has a little bit more of a brain, and is more developed character wise. Will Ferrell is up to his regular shtick, just doing the loud mouth, red neck guy. Overall, playing an irritating idiot... 
               What I did notice a lot in this movie is Will Ferrell was improvising lines, and a lot of it doesn't work in his movies. Like most Will Ferrell comedies, the delivery is a hit or miss, you will get a brief section that is humorous and funny, but there was a lot of laugh-out-louds for a majority of the movie, and then you will get a dull phase with vulgar humor. Luckily for both of them, even though some of there jokes don't work, they both bring enough heart and life to their characters to make it a little bit more bearable.

               I want to start out saying this movie isn't bad at all by any means, but it is pretty inconsistent, and a little misleading for reasons here and there. This film could have had so much more smart humor, especially in an election year, I thought they would take more digs and they had many opportunities to do that, but never did. They did not make one single Obama or Romney joke, which could have tied in well with the scenarios. Like I said the movie has some very funny,great moments, as in one scene involving this dog that was hysterical. The movie near the end, is very predictable, and you can tell what will happen from the middle of the movie. Near the end, it starts to get super cliched, and not believable. It evolves into this uncentimental, cheesy story. There is a lot of pacing from back and forth from one thing to the next. There may be a time where a lot of jokes hit, and then may be 15-20 minutes of them digging up "scraps" from anything that they can find, so they attempt it. 
                   Another thing bad to apply into any comedy movie, is you don't get to feel for the characters. They do make Zach Galfiianakis likeable in certain spots and Will Ferrell too, but you never care for who wins. So, at the revealing of who wins, you kind of are like "oh great, cool, whatever". I didn't really care who won either way. The writers try to make you care for at least one of the candidates, I actually cared more for the supporting characters (Jason Sudeikis, who plays Will's campaign manager). I did like Jason Sudeikis a lot, I would almost want to see a spin off of him more, and Dylan McDermott, who plays Zach Galfianakis' campaign director. I thought the supporting casts were some of the best parts of this movie. If you like Will Ferrell or Zach Galfianakis' movies, you will probably enjoy this. One misconception, is that if you think from the trailer, this movie will be hilarious, it's not, it's inconsistent and predictable. It does have enough laughs where I say to check it out. 
                   I rate it as one of the weakest comedies of the year because of it's competition, but it's not necessarily bad. A disappointment is it had a lot of potential, but didn't live up to it. "The Campaign" could have been a smarter movie, but mainly was just juvenial humor. It's definitely one of Will Ferrell's better movies. Overall, a descent movie, a fun watch.