Have you ever wanted to see a half-fast Groundhog Day with more nudity and no jokes? Of course you haven’t, but for some reason, Netflix thinks you should! Fortunately, I’ve taken one for the team this time around and sat through the alleged comedy, Naked, starring Marlon Wayans.
The plot: It’s Groundhog Day, only instead of a news report, it’s a wedding and, instead of Bill Murray, it’s where comedy goes to die. Marlon Wayans plays Rob, a groom to be who wakes up naked inside of an elevator just when his wedding is supposed to be happening and, if that’s not enough, he is being forced to repeat the same hour over and over again until he gets things right. There’s no reason it’s happening, no rhyme, and no explanation other than God is apparently doing it. I know that I’ve often advocated that I don’t like being spoon-fed information, but Naked‘s own ambiguity only makes me believe it’s more of a Groundhog Day ripoff than it already is.
This movie… urrr…. This movie is bad. It’s unoriginal, it’s unfunny, and it’s poorly acted. There’s not a moment of joy to be found in its runtime and it just gets more painful every time it tries to be funny… if you doubt that, the movie’s idea of funny is Marlon Wayans making faces and screaming like a woman. Beyond that, it’s hoping that the idea of a naked guy in public making funny faces and screaming like a woman is funny.
That’s not funny.
Marlon Wayans usually a funny man, but here he lacks charisma, he lacks charm, his personality is grating, and he has no chemestry with his co-stars. This is a guy seems to be coasting by on the Wayans’ name, a name that is already tired and rickety.
Still, I have to give him some due… this is better than A Haunted House or Fifty Shades of Black. Then again, I’ve seen my dog excrete more interesting products.
I really don’t know what this movie was aiming for. Farce? Romantic Comedy? One moment it seems to be veering towards something serious and the next, Marlon Wayans is mugging toward the camera like a low-rent Jim Carrey. Beyond the extended stretches of nudity, there is really nothing risky about this movie at all. There is no harsh language, no gross-out gags… Hell, if they were to have shot Marlon Wayans from the waist up, it would have been a very safe PG-13 movie. It almost seems like Naked, confused about what it wants to be, is cobbled together out of two competing movies, neither of which were that good to begin with.
I’ll stick with Groundhog Day, thanks.
Jason Gaston 