Maybe not Hail, Caesar, but certainly praise, Caesar.

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2016)

Hail, Caesar! brings all of the elements of a good Coen brothers satire. It is incredibly casted, truly funny and difficult to fully understand at times. Even though the classic movie references went over my head most of the time, the clear attention to detail and an obvious massive amount of research shines through to make Hail Caesar if nothing else a very watchable 2 hours.
The Coens have always been great at casting and this may be their best effort. Some characters are underutilized but the leads are damn near perfect. Clooney may be the best vessel for the Coens to put their brand of physical comedy on screen and He always seems to be on the same page with them. Josh Brolin is never a guy who I have been concerned with putting a great performance on screen and he, like Clooney seems to have found this nice median with the Coens making a character here that will rank among Brolin's best. The rest of the cast as previously stated is filled with strong performances by major leading actors. Alden Ehrenreich should not go unmentioned as Hobie Doyle, a movie cowboy who is thrust into the world of dramatic acting. This may have been the find of the movie for the Coens, and I am excited to see wheat he can do.
I have always preferred the Coen brothers satires more than their more serious movies and that is because of the strength of the writing. The dark and subtle humor that they are able to achieve is usually top class, but this movie has a little more Ladykillers than Fargo. Hail, Caesar! is without a doubt an attempt at a more mainstream comedy. This is not to say the movie is not funny, it is a funny movie, but the comedy comes from a more traditional sense, which only disappoints because of the strength of their more subtle comedy. There are more classic cinema references in this movie than I can count, and most of those went over my head, but I think that is the Coens intention. They wanted the movie to be satisfying for movie buffs and the casual viewer and the like.
When first watching the movie I was disappointing in the look of the film. I figured with the Coens making a movie about classic cinema that the look of the movie would be right out of the golden years of cinema and when the movie started I was not given what I expected. As the movie progresses and we stop in on all of these different movie sets I was proved wrong. They wanted a visual separation between when the viewer is watching the movie presented on screen, and the movies inside the movie on screen. The classic dramas look as if someone time traveled to the 1930s and grabbed an actress in full costume and makeup and brought them back to the Hail, Caesar! set. A very impressive looking movie, especially for fans of cinema.
I scored the movie lower than most Coen brothers films, not because it was not a good movie, or there was something in it that turned me off, but just because the catalog of Coen brothers movies is so strong. Hail, Caesar is no Fargo or Lebowski or O' Brother Where Art Thou, but then again is was never supposed to be like any of those movies. They are at the point in their careers where they don't need to make their innovative and groundbreaking movies to prove themselves anymore. It seems like they are just doing movie about things that interest them more than what they think will surprise everyone. If you are a Coens fan check it out. If you like semi-off brand comedies give it a shot, just know what to expect going in.