Review: "Death at a Funeral" Could Be Funnier (But at Least James Marsden Gets Naked)

I think I'm finally ready to forgive James Marsden for the unwatchable disaster that was last year's The Box.

Why am I being so magnanimous?

Because he spends much of the new movie Death at a Funeral naked, and let me just say: he has an amazing ass (which, just to be clear, is all you "see").

The rest of the movie? Well, it doesn't hold a candle to Marsden's ass.

Interestingly, I feel almost exactly the same way about this movie that I did about the 2007 British movie it's based on (and had almost exactly the same script): it's good for a few laughs, but it's not quite as funny as it thinks it is. And like every comedy these days, apparently, it relies on some toilet humor that is hardly funny at all, just icky.

The set-up? The patriarch of a family dies, calling for a funeral that draws back all the wacky members of an estranged family and their equally wacky spouses. Complications ensue.

This is simply an old-fashioned parlor farce, with slamming windows and tipping coffins. In fact, it really could be a stage play, since almost the entire story is set in a single location in a single afternoon. 

And it must be said: it's wonderful to see such a classic genre populated by a cast of mostly African American actors, including Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover, Tracy Morgan, Zoe Saldana, and Loretta Divine.

They all do their best. And while this is a cast of movie comedians known for mugging-for-the-camera, they actually don't mug too furiously here, thankfully relying on the jokes themselves for the laughs.

I just wish the jokes were funnier.

I also wish Zoe Saldana weren't so skinny. After Star Trek and Avatar, she's clearly poised to become a major star, but it's just as clear that some idiotic manager has convinced her that the only way she can do that is by being a size negative-10. Eat a sandwich, woman!

The movie has a gay subplot, with Peter Dinklage (the only actor returning from the British version) showing up to reveal that he was the dead father's gay lover — and threatening his lover's sons that he'll give the man's widow, their mother, compromising pictures of them together unless they pay him off.

Truthfully, most of the gay jokes here are all the obvious ones (Dad loved The Golden Girls, and his office is filled with naked Greek statues). And maybe I'm being too picky, but I confess I got a little tired of the expressions of complete disgust on virtually every single character's face not just when  they see the compromising photos of Dear Old Dad, but even when they're merely talking about the fact that he was gay.

"Dad was on the down low?"

"Dad was on the way down low!"

I get it: it's creepy to think of your dad having any sex life at all, much less a secret gay one. But Martin Lawrence plays a Lothario character hitting on a teenage girl who has literally just turned 18 — but this isn't portrayed as creepy (as I thought it was). Instead, it's seen as just "boys-will-be-boys" harmless fun.

Still, the movie's a farce, and this is all played the way gay subplots are always played in the grand farcical tradition.

Should you see it? Eh, if it calls to you, you'll probably enjoy it. The preview audience I saw it with seemed to.

And even if you don't like it any more than I did, there's still James Marsden's perfect ass.