The official studio poster
If you've seen pretty much any episode of Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central, you're probably well aware that Schumer is the funniest woman in entertainment today (sorry Kristen Wiig, you're not close; the only ones who are are Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer) and also one of its most subversive. The entire 12 Angry Men episode about her being hot enough to be on TV was a tour de force, while even the more crude humor like her visit to a late night talk show (with Bill Hader!) could be just as funny, even if not as socially conscious.
And she brings that over to the movie she's written here, Trainwreck. It's clearly personal for Schumer as her sister is married and named Kim just as in real life and it all takes place in the New York area, where Schumer's from originally. The scenes with her father, as played by Colin Quinn, from when she was younger are played in the trailers endlessly and the funniest parts of them are left out of the trailers thankfully, but with him getting sent to an assisted living facility in the beginning of the film and his difficulties there, you get drawn a real person beyond just how he thinks monogamy isn't realistic. His arc is probably the saddest in the entire film, but I won't spoil it beyond that. That's not a spoiler since there's no way it's ending happily and that's clear within the first 10 minutes of the film.
Anyway, the general premise of Trainwreck can probably be gathered from the trailers. Schumer is a party girl who likes to have sex a lot (welcome to 2015, omg girls can like sex too!) and believes in Quinn's mantra about monogamy. John Cena, in his best role since Money In The Bank 2011, plays her dumb boyfriend. You've probably seen him with his Mark Wahlberg line in the trailer, and trust me that's the least funny thing he says the entire time. Maybe I thought everything he said was hilarious just because I've seen him on Monday Night Raw for years, but if he doesn't join Dave Bautista and The Rock as movie stars after this, something is wrong. The scene with him and a hand towel in the bathroom will be burned into my brain for the rest of my life.
Schumer's a journalist who hates sports who has to take on a piece about a sports doctor (tension!). He actually challenges her and they get closer and you've seen all this in the trailer. It's nothing shocking. How they get there, though, was again a way to turn the entire relationship between men and women on its head. Normally in movies you see the men as the ones who need to be tamed by the shrew women. The men are the insecure ones who wonder if women like them and women are just seen as being all powerful evil demons with power over the penis.
Here, Schumer shows real vulnerability and depth in her insecurities about Hader. She's the one scared he won't like her. He would seem like just the guy you tame yourself for if it wasn't for the scenes with LeBron James of all people, who, along with Cena, is probably the funniest one in this movie. He gives depth to Hader's character and shows him to have insecurities about himself too even if Schumer sees him as this perfect guy worth calming down for. They both see each other as fantastic and not as someone they have to change to any large degree.
I don't want to spoil it beyond that and it slows down toward the end, with the third act being pretty predictable. There are surprises in there and very self-aware scenes about how cheesy it is, but it still works even if it probably could've been cut down.
I'm usually the first guy checking my phone in the movies since I don't want to be there for three hours, but until very close to the end, the movie just seemed like it was bumping along at an extremely fast pace. The jokes were coming so quickly and the laughs were so loud in the sold out theater that they couldn't all register. I want to go see it again just to hear all the ones I missed from laughing too hard.
The movie is hilarious throughout, even with the sluggish third act, but the scenes where Cena is having sex with Schumer and where James is playing basketball with Hader are two of the great scenes in comedy, especially the latter. And the running gag with LeBron being poor is another great part here.
There's really so much, but what you really have to know is that this is Knocked Up, except reversed and with Bill Hader being roughly 1000x better and more realistic than Katherine Heigl.
***
Anyway, my power rankings for this summer after Trainwreck:
Rankings! I reserve the right to flip one and two since I'm torn
1. Frank
2. Trainwreck
3. Snowpiercer
4. United 93
5. Back To The Future
6. Gone Girl
7. Magic Mike
8. Ghostbusters
9. A History of Violence
10. John Wick
11. Raging Bull
12. Evil Dead
13. Best In Show
14. The Guest
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