'Keeping Up with the Joneses' Review: Skip This Movie and Watch Netflix Instead
Zach Galifianakis, Isla Fisher, Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot star in the film.
— -- Starring Zach Galifianakis, Isla Fisher, Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot
Rated PG-13
Two out of five stars
Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher play Jeff and Karen Gaffney -- the former a human resources director for a tech company, and the latter, an interior designer -- who lead extraordinarily ordinary but happy -- lives with their two kids on cul-de-sac in suburban Atlanta. Pretty much everybody who works with Jeff lives near the couple.
Things become less ordinary when extraordinarily handsome and seemingly perfect couple Tim and Natalie Jones (John Hamm and Gal Gadot) move in next door. Tim claims to be a travel writer and Natalie raises money for Sri Lanka orphans, or something like that.
Karen isn’t buying it. She watches the Joneses, and in one case, follows Natalie around for a day, which leads to the film’s funniest sequence. A film with this cast should’ve had a dozen sequences just as funny. It does not.
One of the great mysteries of the movie business is the consistent ability of Hollywood executives to assemble a talented cast and still make a bad movie. Welcome to "Keeping Up with the Joneses."
Galifianakis is one of the funniest people on the planet. To put him in a movie and have him recite unfunny lines is like driving a Porsche in the slow lane and never shifting out of first gear. Furthermore, Fisher has proven she’s also quite hilarious. Let’s throw in Hamm’s ability to elicit laughter and the genius that is Patton Oswalt, along with proven supporting players like Matt Walsh and Bobby Lee, and this should be a comedy slam dunk. Instead, it’s maybe two laugh-out-loud moments, a few giggles, a smile and a whole lot of eye-rolling.
I will say this. There’s a terrific action sequence in this movie, better than anything you’ll see in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back," another bad movie opening this weekend.
Instead of "Keeping Up with the Joneses," might I suggest you keep up with whatever you haven’t binge-watched yet on Netflix.