ARTHUR: DRUNKS NOT AS FUNNY AS THEY USED TO BE

Alcoholism just doesn't pack the same amusing punch. This remake by the same name doesn't mean the same thing as it did in the original. Hobson is now a woman (Helen Mirren) and Arthur is a young party boy (Russell Brand) who has  "savant-ish gift for defying death with fun." His overbearing mother pushes for his marriage to Jennifer Garner, another overbearing woman with dollar signs in her eyes. Brand has some funny one-liners and scenes (boxing with Evander Holyfield, bidding in an auction against himself) but then he tries to fall in "real" love with Greta Gerwig (???) who has the opposite of funny one-liners and whose performance falls worse than flat. The funny just isn't consistent and then at the end it gets all serious and dramatic. No one wants to see Arthur in rehab. This was not a brilliant remake AT ALL. I like Brand but he isn't enough to carry the movie. Mirren is lovely, but not enough to save the movie. Garner is nice but doesn't belong in this movie. Gerwig... she was in this movie??? Sorry, I forgot.