georginagraham-85814
I adored this. Simon Pegg talks a lot which is awesome because I do think I'd leave my husband for him and I'd hate to go to all that divorce stuff for a guy with no conversation.
Lake Bell who I love has a great accent which helps and is genuinely likeable for an American playing a Brit. Well done you. All in all, yes it's got a montage but it's a montage that makes you wish you were on that date....not like a Rocky montage that makes you grateful you're not a boxer. I score it slightly less for Nancy's dreadful jumper. A happy thumbs up all round.
Gavin Purtell
'Man Up' is a really well made & executed romantic-comedy. It's a simple story - the old blind-date mix-up, where Jake (Pegg) meets Nancy (Bell), both disillusioned with relationships, but they happen to find each other and have a great night out, before it's revealed that she's not his intended blind date.Very fast-paced (only 85min long), with no time for dull moments, and plenty of laughs throughout to keep everyone happy. Williams is great as the creepy/stalker-ish 'friend' and Lovibond plays the starry-eyed, optimistic intended blind-dater. The soundtrack is great and there's some fun/memorable scenes, including the teens running through the streets, the race to the bar and the fire extinguisher.What really makes the film work is Pegg's unflappable charm and his chemistry with Bell, who's the real star - endearing and unassuming, she's cute, but also witty and just enjoyable to watch. It's also refreshing to see Pegg doing something simple. In this film's case, easy doesn't = poor.
The Couchpotatoes
This is normally absolutely not the kind of movies I would go for. But you've got to give the wife something sometimes. And she likes her rom-coms every now and then. And if I'm honest I had a couple of laughs with Man Up. This Britisch rom-com is way better then the usual American ones with their forced humor. Okay the story is like what you expected to be. From the first minute you know the desperate single girl will find her companion for life and it doesn't really matter. With those kind of movies you know there will be some drama but in the end it will all end well. That's not even a spoiler because all rom-coms end like that. The thing that worked in this movie was the interaction between Simon Pegg and Lake Bell. It was funny to watch. And also the couple lines Rory Kinnear had. All in all I enjoyed watching Man Up, more then I thought I would.
michael-3204
Romantic comedy about Nancy (Lake Bell), who on the spur of the moment usurps a blind date with Jack (Simon Pegg), that strikes a good balance between sweetness and cynicism. This is about as formulaic as they come -- if you don't know from the moment that Nancy and Jack meet how they will end up, you probably have never seen a movie before -- and if you like the formula, you'll probably like this rendering of it. There aren't necessarily what I would call surprises in store over the course of the film, but there are plenty of unexpectedly clever bits thrown into the mix to keep its predictability from becoming boring. For example, Nancy and Jack bond over, among other things, love of the movie version of "The Silence of the Lambs," which would seem to be an unusual choice, but it sets-up a great plot callback late in the film that had me in stitches.Several of the characters, especially Nancy and her lecherous school stalker Sean (Rory Kinnear), are just this side of being too obnoxious to want to spend much time with. Jack comes off a little better, not that he doesn't have his flaws of course, perhaps in part because it is impossible for Simon Pegg to be too obnoxious. Fans of the TV show "Catastrophe" might be surprised to see Sharon Horgan play a relatively benign character (Nancy's sister) who by comparison to others in the story is no where near as obnoxious as she can be. I never really believed that Nancy was supposed to be a journalist with literary pretensions, which seems like an oddly specific profession to hang on a character when the film spends no time exploring it. Jack's more nebulous "online marketing manager" strikes a better tone for a film that is set over the course of a long date. The film does a much better job of making London into a romantic city in which everyone is prosperous and healthy and needs only a grand romantic gesture to have a happy life. If you can swallow that, this film is for you.
AD
