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Created Mar 11, 2018 12:26AM PST • Edited Feb 24, 2024 09:22PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   If the Seinfeld crew returned in 2018 and were into game night with friends, Game Night would be their movie. It’s that funny, that deadpan, that banal yet brilliant. How so? One terrifically executed comedic setpiece after another, from the meet-cute opening montage all the way to the comically creepy conclusion.

   Pitch perfect drollery, dead-on satire and more than a bit of star power make a terrific night at the movies. It’s also intriguing: more substantial than it appears, biting but not divisive, naughty but not really nasty.

   Now, a hitman does get sucked through a jet engine. Of course, you can see that bit in the very funny trailer. Unlike comedies that use all their good bits in their trailers, Game Night has funny bits to spare. Many build on what came before, making their LOLs easy to predict and giving the laugh time to grow in the belly, since easy to predict doesn’t make them any less funny. Many are BLF — Belly Laugh Funny.

   The guys who wrote Horrible Bosses wrote Game Night. Comedies live or die by script more than other genres. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein clearly know how to write terrific comedy scripts. These guys know funny: snarky funny, sexy funny, smartly funny, insanely funny, riotously funny, BLOL funny.

   Game Night is all that and it features Kyle Chandler too, an abundance of riches that adds up to a really great comedy flick, 4.5 out of 5, and the first great comedy of 2018. 2020 for Game Night 2? Winner!

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Kyle Chandler anchors the movie as Brooks, Jason Bateman’s older, handsomer, richer brother, of course. Chandler is a standout in everything he’s ever been in, so is a natural as one handsome, happening dude. His gravitas grounds the movie, making all the comedy around him possible.

   Game Nighters

   • Jason Bateman & Rachel McAdams are well cast as a successful young couple who happen to be insanely into games, especially winning games.
   • Billy Magnussen plays a dim heartbreaker, Sharon Horgan his older, smarter, wiser “date” of sorts.
   • Lamorne Morris & Kylie Bunbury as childhood sweethearts now married and into games.
   • Jesse Plemons is creepy funny as a next-door neighbor from hell.
   • Natasha Hall, Loren Schaffer, Kabby Borders & Kelly Johns cameo as hotties who come along on a date.

   Others

   • Michael C. Hall as a big bad guy
   • Danny Huston as Mr. Big
   • Chelsea Peretti cameos spectacularly as a woman startled out of a well earned sleep.
   • Camille Chen as a sexy doctor
   • Directors John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein cameo.
   • Malcolm X. Hughes as “Not Denzel”
   • Jeffrey Wright as an FBI Agent

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Director Mark Perez used 3 dozen stuntmen and 2 dozen prop makers in making Game Night. That adds up to more than a little action.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Fierce 2.3

19. Rudeness Profane 2.8

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.2

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.5

23. Biological Glib 2.0

24. Physical Glib 2.0