Movie Review: <i>Get Him to the Greek</i>

Stoller quickly runs out of ideas in this repetitive road movie, and, unfortunately, the movie quickly runs out of laughs because it has no third act, and barely has a second.
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Apparently British It-boy Russell Brand has been signed for a remake of Arthur, the overrated 1981 Dudley Moore comedy that won Sir John Gielgud an Oscar.

Which seems redundant because he's already remade Arthur -- except they've called it Get Him to the Greek. Here's a story of a perpetually intoxicated, spoiled rich kid whose minders try to keep him focused so he doesn't blow it. What else would you call it?

Well, yes, I suppose you could call it My Favorite Year. Or any of a dozen other films that matched badly behaving stars with starstruck handlers. Except that most of those were consistently funny.

Yes, I know, Get Him to the Greek comes from the imagination of Judd Apatow acolyte Nick Stoller, who also directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which Brand's character, rock star Aldous Snow, figured prominently. But Stoller quickly runs out of ideas in this repetitive road movie, and, unfortunately, the movie quickly runs out of laughs because it has no third act, and barely has a second.

As a result, it only hangs in there for about half of its nearly two-hour running time. But when it comes to goofy, gross gags, Stoller is no Apatow -- or even Jason Segal, who wrote Sarah Marshall. He's basically got one idea with this film and doesn't know what to do with it once he gets it off the ground.

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