tooth soup

photo credit: Carl Fleischer Photos

I recently watched

Ghost Town with the girl, just a couple of nights ago actually. I don’t normally review movies; there are sites that will tell you that stuff written by communities that know what they’re doing. My exception in this case isn’t really to review the movie itself as to outline a few similarities between the movie in question and another. For the record, I enjoyed Ghost Town. I don’t usually enjoy Ricky Gervais’ performances, but I found this one to be charming and funny. The supporting cast does really well to contrast him, and the script is good. So if you’re looking for a straight yea or nay, it’s a yea from me.

That yea does come with a condition though. If you’ve seen Will Ferrell in last year’s meta-movie Stranger Than Fiction, then you’ve seen Ghost Town. How dost thy imitate? Let me count the ways:

TRADITIONAL SPOILER WARNING

Protagonist is played by a comedian-gone-straight-man:

Will Ferrell tones down his Will Ferrelness to play the hapless Harold Crick, while Ricky Gervais tones down his Ricky Gervaisnous (though not quite as much as Ferrell’s Ferrellity) to play Bertram Pincus.

Protagonist is living a life he hates:

Will Ferrell is in a job he hates (tax office) while Ricky Gervais is in a job he loves because it affords him to live the life he hates (patient-hating dentist). They are both living empty lives which cause them to be everything they don’t want to be. But they don’t know it yet.

Protagonist has something miraculous happen that alters their perception of life and makes them talk to someone invisible, creating amusing incidents whereby they look around all embarrassed and try not to appear crazy:

Will Ferrell develops a nasty case of the narrator. Ricky Gervais has a colonoscopy and gains the ability to see ghosts. Cue crazy talking.

Protagonist realises woman of his dreams is totally not into him and he’s going to need to change his outlook on life in order to impress and ultimately bed her:

Welcome to the stage Maggie Glyhalhhggl (indie version) and Tea Leoni (standard crazy stressed lady version).

Protagonist screws things up with girl:

Yeap. Not hard to do when you have a couple of mercurial girls like Mags and Tea.

Protagonist almost dies by getting hit by a bus, but doesn’t:

I honestly couldn’t believe it when that happened in Ghost Town. At least pick a different mode of almost-death?

Protagonist wakes up, gets on with his new found awesomely positive life, with girl:

And they all live happily ever after.

The End.

So yes. My reaction to Ghost Town did uncannily resemble my reaction to Stranger Than Fiction. But that’s okay, I liked both of them. If you’re looking for a good laugh and life lesson kind of movie, you could do a whole lot worse than either. 3.5/5 doppelgangers from me.

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