As the great philosopher Karl Pilkington once said, "When anything's done quickly, it tends to be sort of s**t."
The script for this could've been done in half an hour. Either Gervais' writing ability has waned as his fame has grown, or has been hampered by the constraints of writing for film. His TV series' have been uniquely excellent; character-driven comedies occasionally punctuated by bursts of emotion. His full-length feature films however have been mediocre at best; Ghost Town had none of his irreverent wit, The Invention of Lying was just a rehash of the same ideas as his first film, and now Special Correspondents feels like the work of someone who has made too much money to care. This is a man who had the restraint to end one of Britain's greatest and most popular sitcoms and forgo a boatload of cash because he feared it would tarnish its quality. Instead he churns out this.
Clichéd characters, predictable plot, very little comedy - the entire film rides on Gervais' previous successes. Take him out of the equation and you are left with a bargain bin film with a "not quite A-List but close enough to put them on the box art" supporting cast and a story that seems to have been forcibly reworked for Hollywood by the 'men upstairs' to make as much money and appeal to as broad a range of people as possible.
Predictable, forgettable cash-grab, laden with all the tropes of a poor Hollywood comedy that an earlier Gervais would've loathed. Don't waste your time.
The script for this could've been done in half an hour. Either Gervais' writing ability has waned as his fame has grown, or has been hampered by the constraints of writing for film. His TV series' have been uniquely excellent; character-driven comedies occasionally punctuated by bursts of emotion. His full-length feature films however have been mediocre at best; Ghost Town had none of his irreverent wit, The Invention of Lying was just a rehash of the same ideas as his first film, and now Special Correspondents feels like the work of someone who has made too much money to care. This is a man who had the restraint to end one of Britain's greatest and most popular sitcoms and forgo a boatload of cash because he feared it would tarnish its quality. Instead he churns out this.
Clichéd characters, predictable plot, very little comedy - the entire film rides on Gervais' previous successes. Take him out of the equation and you are left with a bargain bin film with a "not quite A-List but close enough to put them on the box art" supporting cast and a story that seems to have been forcibly reworked for Hollywood by the 'men upstairs' to make as much money and appeal to as broad a range of people as possible.
Predictable, forgettable cash-grab, laden with all the tropes of a poor Hollywood comedy that an earlier Gervais would've loathed. Don't waste your time.