I usually try to write my reviews to reflect the movie I saw.
For Horton Hears a Who, I used some childish rhyming and all around good humor.
For 21 I used my intensity and gambling knowledge to make a few good analogies.
This week for Leatherheads I’ll stay faithful to my trend of making my reviews like the movie I’m reviewing and keep this one, well, boring.
But boring can’t be possible; could George Clooney, one of the sexiest men alive, and John Krasinski, the most loveable character on “The Office,” be part of something that’s less than irresistible?
Prove it.
I can’t prove it, but I can explain why I found it to be true.
‘Wow, now here’s something that hasn’t been done in a long time,’ I thought when I first heard about Leatherheads, and in short, I was intrigued.
I was partial to a few aspects of the movie, the first of which was the cast.
Clooney, Krasinski and heck, even Renée Zellweger are three people that I love to see on the big screen.
One dangerous thing about a strong cast, however, is that it leaves room for the writing to be lax.
Less-than-engaging writing may have been the biggest letdown of the movie because there were times when I actually found myself nodding off.
I can honestly say I wasn’t tired going in to the movie, especially since I had just taken a picture of a Wall-E promotional poster and been accused of a felony.
So being awake and almost shaken, I was more than optimistic for some solid laughs but they just didn’t come.
That’s not to say the premise for the comedy wasn’t clever, though, because the few instances of the nostalgic 1920s slapstick humor that managed to materialize were quite amusing.
Another aspect of this movie that had me subtly excited was the direction of George Clooney.
I didn’t particularly enjoy his previous directing effort for Goodnight and Good Luck, but I appreciated the realistic value and attention to detail he put in to it.
In that regard, Clooney did a great job in Leatherheads conveying the 1920s from a visual perspective.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t make a movie.
What should make a movie isn’t the cast, the humor, or Clooney behind the scenes, but the plot.
The plot and actual storyline may be Leatherhead’s biggest downfall in the sense that I just didn’t care.
What advertised itself as being a football-packed comedy romp quickly turned into an “anything for the big story” back stabbing snooze fest.
Maybe the movie was good, maybe it was good for what it ended up being. The problem is, what it ended up being wasn’t what it was supposed to be.
My advice is if you’ve seen a trailer for Leatherhead’s and you think it looks good, don’t see it, but if you’ve seen a trailer and it doesn’t look like something you’d enjoy, give it a shot.
If you haven’t seen a trailer at all go to the theater, take a picture of an Indiana Jones cardboard cutout and see if anyone arrests you, because that’s a felony.
I give Leatherheads a C- because there are some decent laughs, and between those laughs the theater provides a nice environment for a nap.

Questions or comments?
Contact Joe at
JJUnderb9309@winona.edu