Woo

I had the displeasure of seeing this movie last night. It was on one of the HBOs and it was one of those movies that is so bad, you can't stop watching. Afterwards, you just think to yourself, "why the hell did I just sit and watch that awful, awful movie???" Please don't waste your time with this. There are only a few memorable, funny lines, but I don't even remember them. My mind is so clouded with how bad this was. You'd think Will Smith could get his wife a decent part with how powerful he's become in Hollywood.

"Woo" is about a woman (named, of all things, Woo!) who goes on a blind date with a guy who hasn't been with a woman in a long time. Woo has been through a lot with men and gets the feeling this new guy just wants one thing, so she leads him on a series of late-night adventures a la Scorsese's "After Hours." This movie is L-A-M-E lame. It's packed with all sorts of awful dialogue, poor performances, racial stereotypes (including the big fat black woman who waves her finger at everyone and finishes every sentence with the word "girlfriend") and so on and so forth.

Nowadays it's best remembered for starring Jada Pinkett (Smith), wife of Will Smith. Her performance isn't that good and it's hard to believe they based an entire movie -- including the TITLE! -- on her character.

Overall this is poor, stupid, (intellectually) offensive and insulting, clichéd, stereotypical and worse than all that: uninteresting! It's not entertaining, it's not funny, it's just dumb and annoying.

Not even worth watching on TV.

Tim is a shy man who hasn't been with a woman in quite a while. Woo is a woman who is looking for her perfect man but has been played once too often. When a friend hooks them both up on a date things go wrong from the start when Woo feels that Tim is only after one thing. After that she drags him through a series of misadventures as he gradually loses patience.

I must admit to have taped this because of the presence of the lovely Jada Pinkett Smith. Ironically I watched this on the day that The Matrix Reloaded opened in the UK – I wonder will she be boasting about her presence in this film now that she has real hits under her belt. The plot here is almost an `urban' rehash of Blind Date, with Woo leading the mild mannered Tim to despair. However the majority of the film is poor and not very funny. The plot is very thin, so thin that it needs separate little subplots for the other characters just to sustain the running time. Sadly neither of the two `friends' subplots are any good at all and are either stupid or obvious.

The main `romance' between Woo and Tim is badly translated. At no time did you wish for these two to be a couple, even the `slow music during a thoughtful taxi ride' moment seemed to come out of nowhere and indicate that the film would be ended soon. To be honest other than Woo's body I could see no reason any man would want to be with her – certainly Tim could do a lot better, which kinda goes against the point of the film. Their episodic adventures raised a few small laughs for me but not enough to justify the time.

Pinkett-Smith is OK. Her looks are spoilt by a lipstick colour that doesn't suit her face and a general attitude that alienated her from an audience that she needed to keep. Davidson is better despite playing the same sort of character as he did in Booty Call, he has more of a knack for comedy and his character was easier to emphasis with than Woo. The support cast are all pretty poor whether it is Chappelle demanding his wife dress as a `chicken ho' or Martin, Heath etc being `dogs'. Cameos from LL Cool J and Foxy Brown do nothing to liven it up.

Overall I am not against urban comedies although many of them do tend to fall into lazy cliché that would border on the racist were they not produced for the very groups they stereotype. Here I had low expectations but was still let down., Very few laughs, very basic plotting and such poor characterisation that it was hard to like anyone in the film. Best avoided and very probably being tippexed off Pinkett-Smith's CV as I type this.

"Woo" has a fine cast. Jada Pinkett has great charisma. Tommy Davidson is a fine comic actor, though he isn't too convincing as a straight-arrow law student. The film is written in sitcom format. The film consists of one implausible scene of conflict after another (especially at the Italian restaurant), desperate to find a punchline. Some of the scenes work. I thought the scene at the transvestite bar was hilarious. And I liked the little cameo by Billy Dee. That gave the film a touch of class. It's too bad LL Cool J only had one scene. I liked his smooth "mack daddy" character. But with a film like this, even though it's a comedy, your disbelief elevates by the minute and it just doesn't have a natural, character-driven flow. It forces itself upon the audience. And the third act is predictable and unconvincing. This is a film that could've been more than OK, if it had a little more wit and focus. If this is about a 1 or 2 dollar rental at your local video store--this is not a bad film to rent. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend this one.

Though the film had some predictable moments, overall it was entertaining to say the least. The scence with the She males was just plain hilarious!!!! Moreover, the park scene had some funny lines. Romaine's "Damn baby let me suck the left one and make the right one jealous", had me rolling on the floor. Dave Chappelle and LL Cool J had limited participation, but brought good aspects to the film. Overall, there have been some horrible films produced by Hollywood, this wasn't one of them. So final opinion, light hearted, mixed with some sparse witty dialog made it a worth while film. Tommy Davidson, not the funniest person I've seen on the screen didn't do that bad of a job.