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Created Jan 01, 2017 05:20PM PST • Edited Nov 04, 2017 12:59AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Middle-America clashes with Silicon Valley as much as a dad clashes with a future son-in-law in Why Him? This makes for a funny movie, with lots of LOLs and a side-splitting scene or two. Yet, it would have been funnier with a stronger cast, starting with a better comedic lead than James Franco. At least Bryan Cranston is on his game, while Keegan-Michael Key is the comedic MVP as a self-effacing estate manager.

   The LOLs come from the culture shock of an old-school midwestern printer encountering a snot-nosed internet billionaire. The comedy is leavened by first establishing that the printer’s business is failing due to the internet-driven demise of printing. And yet the jokes are mostly at the expense of the cyber mogul, whose extreme profligacy is exceeded by his hypocrisy. Like many of today’s tech-wealthy, he fancies himself an organic creature, as if feeding the free-range chickens roaming his extravagant estate keeps him connected to some proletarian ideal. In short, this is a clash between Trump’s America & Hillary’s America.

   It all comes to a head in a hilarious bathroom scene, when the old-school midwesterner discovers that the mogul’s house is paperless, toilet paper included. So finishing his business requires mastering the inscrutable control panel of a water-jet equipped Japanese john. The net environmental benefit of this setup is dubious at best, but the comedy value is priceless. It had my sold-out showing in stitches.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   James Franco is merely adequate as a comedic leading man, though he should crush the role of super-smart, self-indulgent man-child. Heck, his character is even based in Silicon Valley, where Franco grew up. Yet the native Valley dude’s timing isn’t great, nor is he charming, not even in the shambolic way the role requires.

   Bryan Cranston, OTOH, is a superior comedic actor, albeit within the reaction comedy of slow burns, funny fulminations and diminished dignity the role requires. His interplay with Keegan-Michael Key slays!

   • Zoey Deutch disappoints as his daughter and Franco’s love interest. She’s isn’t especially luscious, nor is anything more than a straight-man.
   • Megan Mullally is off her game as Deutch’s mother and Cranston’s wife.
   • Griffin Gluck is pleasant but unmemorable as their teen son and Deutch’s brother.
   • Keegan-Michael Key is brilliantly funny as a Euro-sophisticate assistant. He saves the movie.
   • Cedric the Entertainer is wasted as Cranston’s right-hand-man back at the factory.
   • Kaley Cuoco voices a Siri-like digital assistant, which is fine, but more a gimmick than comedy.
   • Himself Cameos: Steve Aoki, Elon Musk, Gene Simmons & Paul Stanley

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

   James Franco was OK, Bryan Cranston was great.

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   Keegan-Michael Key

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    The film stands as one of the definitive spoofs of Silicon Valley’s latest boom. Along with HBO’s Silicon Valley series, it proves that tech riches create a fertile field of comedic possibilities.

    John Hamburg also wrote and directed I Love You, Man, a superior comedy to Why Him?.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.5

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Fierce 1.8

19. Rudeness Profane 3.3

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.2

    Silly cinematic hijinks aside, Why Him? hits pay-dirt by satirizing how coastal elites fancy themselves as morally superior beings because they engage in showy environmentalism and consume artisanal food.

    Never mind that their environmentalism (e.g., forsaking toilet paper in the movie, but also including electric cars) is mixed in with conspicuous consumption that would make a Robber Baron blush, or that their organic, locally grown food is much too expensive for working-class people to afford. And yet these Hillary Democrats (almost all of them, even if the characters in the movie aren’t identified as such) enjoy hierarchical privileges that keep them ensconced in a bubble as far from working-class America as the Queen of England is from East Enders.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.4

23. Biological Surreal 2.3

24. Physical Glib 2.0