If you think the following is funny, go see this movie...

Rating: 1/10 (4 January 2007)

NON SPOILER PART:
This movie is definitely not an endearing comedy, it is not a about a family finding together, it is not a about the development of people; it is also not really funny (and not really dark; see "American Beauty" for dark comedy). It is just a bad movie, riding on an enormous amount of hype. You would be better off watching a re-run of an episode of "Married with Children", than seeing this movie. You have been warned, so watch at your own peril.
SPOILER PART:
However, if you think the following is funny, go see this movie...
1) a totally artificial family on which a scriptwriter dumps as much calamity as he could think of (isn't it fun, that there are others that are worse off than we are - hahaha ?)
2) a skinny, long haired 15 year old who took a vow of silence because he's such a Nietzsche fan - and at the same time wants to become an Airforce pilot (you can't make this stuff up)
3) a nice grandfather, adored by his little charming niece - who has recently taken up snorting heroine and whose advice to his grandson is "fuck many women, not one, but _many_..." (repeated 2 times, to make it really funny)
4) a cute but slightly overweight little girl who for the love of her life could not get 2nd place in a beauty pageant - which makes the whole premise of the story _slightly_ superficial
5) a worn down VW bus, which, god isn't it just hilarious, you have to push to get started and then jump aboard as it starts to pick up speed; and who loses its (sorry, fit of laughter) - its side door the second the final destination is reached (also I _might_ have seen this in some other movie before...)
6) and generally not very funny actors (apart from Steve Carell, who somehow manages to detach himself from the movie plot and make his character funny in some scenes, despite everything else)
If however, like me, you just perceive this as someone dumping his frustration with the world (and the US: especially the two hospital scenes seemed frighteningly real - unfortunately "real" does translate to neither dark nor funny) on us, camouflaging it as "dark humor" (in this case a hint of dark, a tiny sprinkle of humor and lots of depression), which then has consecutively been marketed as something it is definitely not (an "endearing comedy"), then... well you get my drift :-)