An Insult to Marathon Runners Everywhere

Rating: 2/10 (23 February 2008)

Now I'm not an ideal audience to review this movie. I don't like Simon Pegg, I don't find him funny and I've never enjoyed one of his films yet so this review might be just a slight tad biased against the film.
I'll try my best to be objective but it won't be easy. Pegg plays Dennis who jilts his stunningly beautiful bride to be (played by Thandie Newton, is he insane?) on their wedding day.
Don't you already hate him? NO? Did I mention she's heavily pregnant with his child? Do you hate him now? Yes? Good!
Now I truly don't understand why they chose this title. At the start of the film he's not fat, 5 years later he's not fat either. That's just a bit of a paunch, and as he's a smoker it's not a surprise.
Pegg is an exceptionally pathetic character who is hard to root for. There aren't many laughs in the film (the little boy giving Pegg the finger on the night bus is hysterical!) and the running "joke" (because it is never funny) of Pegg locking himself out of his flat isn't even funny the 1st time it happens.
The whole training sequence is totally wrong. I've run 2 marathons myself and been a road runner for more than 15 years, you NEVER train by running in the middle of the road. It'll get you killed really quickly. Also for man who just had a nail jammed into his foot he isn't limping when he goes to see the Nike people.
Whats even worse is he's still training in the same stupid plimsols that gave him a gigantic blister in the 2nd training sequence, I also don't see how skipping or running up steps is going to help train for running on mostly flat roads. The whole drinking raw eggs thing is a total myth too (and tastes disgusting!). I understand their parodying the original Rocky training sequence but that's only funny if your making a movie where Dennis's end goal is a boxing match, which it isn't.
Now as kind as his landlord may think he's being, giving Dennis a brand new pair of running shoes less than 3 weeks before the race is a really stupid idea. He'll have no time at all to break them in, it takes at least 2 months to break in new running shoes fully.
The chances of them televising a Marathon thats only in it's 1st year is pretty low to be honest, especially one that's only got 10,000 runners (that's not a very big field at all).
Also them putting a drinks station away from the actual route of the race would never happen. Likewise the shots of cars behind Dennis, most Marathons keep the roads closed for at least 5 hours for slow runners & stragglers so that wouldn't just happen either. It's stupid that they wouldn't know who Dennis is, they can see his race number, its a matter of minutes to ask who registered under that number.
The TV guy says Dennis broke his ankle, I'm sorry but no matter how fit you are, your not going to run even a metre on a broken ankle let alone another 9 miles like Dylan Moran told Dennis he had left to go. Anyway, the race organisers would have stopped him and pulled him off the course after a certain amount of time (especially after the report of his broken ankle) due to insurance reasons.
Once Dennis spots Thandie Newton & his son past the finish line he suddenly "forgets" his broken ankle (he doesn't even limp or hobble like he was before, highly unlikely).
It's never said exactly when the next scene takes place but Dennis is walking OK so I'd have to assume its at least 6 or more weeks later (thats how long a broken ankle would stay in plaster). This is an incredibly weak ending, nothing is resolved.
Has Thandie left Hank Azaria? Has Dennis got his flat back? Are Dennis and Thandie getting back together?
Far too many questions left unresolved. A really weak ending in a pretty bad film.