SYNOPSICS
Envy (2004) is a English,Italian movie. Barry Levinson has directed this movie. Ben Stiller,Jack Black,Rachel Weisz,Amy Poehler are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2004. Envy (2004) is considered one of the best Comedy movie in India and around the world.
Ben Stiller and Jack Black star as Tim and Nick, best friends, neighbors and co-workers, whose equal footing is suddenly tripped up when one of Nick's harebrained get-rich-quick schemes actually succeeds: Vapoorizer, a spray that literally makes dog poop, or any other kind for that matter, evaporate into thin air -- to where exactly is anyone's guess. Tim, who had scoffed at Nick's idea and passed on an opportunity to get in on the deal, can only watch as Nick's fortune -- and Tim's own envy -- grow to equally outrageous proportions. When the flames of jealousy are fanned by an oddball drifter (Walken) who imposes himself into the situation, Tim's life careens wildly out of control ... taking Nick's with it.
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Envy (2004) Reviews
What an odd film!
I just saw this movie at a sneak preview and all I can say is..."What did I just watch????" And I mean that in a good and bad way. The plot is really simple. Stiller and Black play friends/neighbors. Stiller is the focused, hardworker while Black is a dreamer. Black invents this idea to create a spray that erases poo. The idea becomes very popular, and Black becomes very rich. The extravagant lifestyle that Black gains and the fact that he still tries to be best friends with Stiller causes Stiller to become crazy with envy. As I said, the plot is simple. Everything else is plain odd. The direction is odd, with a weird rotating opening shot to out-of-nowhere sped up sequences. The dialouge and the acting is very odd; odd in a rambling sort of way. And the sound track is the oddest thing in the movie, from the weird "Envy" song that keeps on reappearing to the scene where you think you're going to hear a classic 80's song but suddenly it's in Japanese. So, the true question is this...is odd funny? That depends purely on the individual. I was cracking up at the shear unwavering weirdness of the movie. After the screening I heard people call it horribly unfunny and glad that it was free. Strangely, I understood their point. There are no jokes whatsoever, so if you aren't hooked by the uniqueness of it all, you will hate this movie. Absolutely hate it. This movie is destined to lose a lot of money at the box office and become a DVD cult classic. If you can laugh at a movie with no real jokes, like Cable Guy or Punch Drunk Love, then I suggest you see it. If you don't, run away from this movie. It'll only make you mad.
This movie is secretly brilliant
The central image of this movie is a dog taking a crap. Knowing this, I can't imagine how anyone could judge Envy by the same criteria as a "real" movie. This movie is stupid and it knows it's stupid. It's fully aware of that fact, so don't bother using that as a critique. Accept the stupidity into your heart and let this film melt your brain with comedy. In many mainstream comedies, audiences have to wade through some cheesy or worn out plot to get to the funny stuff. But at the end of the day the stories these movies are telling aren't really any good, they're merely a labored suggestion of substance. Ultimately the reason we watch them is to see some funny performers doing funny things, not for the narrative. However good a movie like the 40-Year-Old Virgin maybe, Bergman it ain't! The story only really functions to support the comedy. So then why not make a joke out of the plot too? Why not make a comedy that is one long extended joke? Just enjoy the insanity of the brilliant cast and be thankful that Envy has the common decency to forgo the usual pretense of profundity and focus on poop jokes instead. Now this next point may be a harder argument to make and may contradict my last point, but if you do look closely at the recurring gags and images in Envy, the dare-I-say motifs of the film, you might find that it is actually a very nasty spoof of our consumer culture. Plus, the main conflict of the film is that the characters have such a hard time reconciling their greed for material possessions and their moral obligations to other human beings. Jack Black's character even utters a line that I think many people actually live by: "Nice things make life better." So perhaps Envy is secretly brilliant and is merely hiding behind a mask of utter stupidity. That would make it the inverse of most movies out there today (I'm thinking of Inception right now).
Look out Ishtar, you've got competition!
This is my first movie review on IMDb. I was forced to register after watching this movie. I cannot in good conscience allow this movie to be unreviewed by me. The people must be warned! First of all, my rating is: 0 (as in "zero") I love Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Rachel Weis, and Christopher Walken, and yet, I hated this movie. There is a plot, but who cares when there's no script. The dialogue is unreal and plain boring, the situations are contrived, the flow of events is slow and somewhat arbitrary, the characters are unsympathetic and uninteresting, and the story, although based on a good premise, is stupid. This movie is a piece of poo. Never mind wasting MONEY on this movie, it's not even worth your TIME spent watching it. Please do not see it... I beg of you!
No Wonder Christopher Walken Plays in This
This could be looked at in many different ways. This movie sucks, its good or its just plain weird. The third one probably explains this movie best. It has strange themes and just has a strange plot. So who else but Christopher Walken would play in this no matter how bad, average or even how good it might be. The acting was what you would expect especially out of Ben Stiller. Jack Black I have always liked so you know what you will get out of him but this is not bad. Christopher Walken is always off the wall. He is always enjoyable to watch no matter how bad the movie is. Comedy wise it is somewhat funny. This of course meaning that it does have its moments (though very few) but can get a little over top here and there which makes me feel like the movie is just desperate for laughs but of course not in a good way. The directing was average as well. Barry Levinson is a slightly overrated director and really did not do a good job here. This movie seemed that it had a lot more potential and he did not do much to reach it. Just very average and did not seem like a lot of effort was put into making this film. The writing is the key to a good comedy. Obviously that means the writing here failed. At best it is below average. Considering it does have its moments it was not too horrible. That is never a good thing to say about a movie though. If not for Christopher Walken and it stupid ridiculous ending I would have given it a lower rating. He is always quite a character in his movies. Stil this is just a whacked out strange movie with strange characters that really don't go anywhere. Not completely horrible but I would not really recommend it though because it is a very forgettable movie.
Misfires across every aspect to produce a pointless film whose only merit is how forgettable it is
Tim Dingman and Nick Vanderpark are neighbours and colleagues working down at 3M in middle-management jobs with vague prospects for more. Tim scores highly across the board on his performance chart, but dreamer Nick flunks on focus. Constantly discussing his pipe-dreams, Nick has worn down Tim to the point where he doesn't listen any more. However when Nick does hit on something, Tim ignores the chance to invest. Eighteen months later and Nick is rich beyond his wildest dreams and has covered his house across the street into a mansion. Meanwhile Tim has been left feeling inadequate and jealous of Nick's success. I'm surprised by the amount of hate put aside for this film, not because it is bad but more because, having seen it, I'm struggling to have any strong feelings towards it one way or another as it is all very bland and misfiring. I can understand why professional critics laid into it; it is not that often that they sees stars fall so when someone has a high-profile flop, it is almost like a competition to write the most savage review and of course the public mostly follow suit at first. Anyway, I'm not quite sure what the plot is here because it seems to be being made up as it goes along and there is no flow to it. Worse than this, there are no real laughs either. Occasionally (and I mean very occasionally) there are some slightly amusing moments but mostly it is just one misfired attempt at humour after another and the overwhelming impact on me was one of inducing boredom. The cast are wasted with the material, which is where the weakness lies. Stiller needed to produce a real person and then move him into extremes in the way that has worked for him before. Here though he cannot find the person and instead he just mugs his way through. Black is left on the sidelines to occasionally act like a big kid, he doesn't suit the role and he deserved something better but he is nothing compared to the waste of the fine actress Weisz, who hopefully at least had fun on this cause I can't imagine this film brought her anything else. Walken is OK but only because he is being "Walken" throughout which is still fun because he is now like someone doing a really good impression of Christopher Walken, which is fun I guess. Overall then a bad film but not in the ranting "burning torches in the street" sense that some reviewers have done but just in the "pointless wasted of time with nothing at all of value" sense. At best it amuses but mostly every aspect of it misfires most of the time and it only succeeded in making me bored.