MARK JUDGE: Why Aren’t Movies Fun Anymore?

Playfulness, connection and flow—it’s a good guide to why movies today aren’t that much fun. Few have these three elements. According to Collider, the five best comedies of 2023 are: The Holdovers, Poor Things, Asteroid City, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Barbie. These are all good movies—but are they fun? Compare them to the comedies of the 1980s—Beverly Hills Cop, Back to School, Ruthless People, Stripes, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Little Shop of Horrors. Barbie is a sociology lecture compared to, say, Ghostbusters. Airplane!, A Fish Called Wanda, The Blues Brothers? Fun, fun, fun. Eddie Murphy in the 80s was fun incarnate. Film critic Anne Hornaday once said of Steve Martin, “It’s a delight to watch him chase after a cab.” Can you say the same about Amy Schumer? Ferris Bueller is an entire movie about playfulness, connection and flow.

Over the past few decades, fun movies were gradually replaced by comedies that felt they had to push the scatological and sexual edge—The Hangover effect. Film critic Carey O’Dell summed it up well: “The ‘adult’ language, gross-out shtick, scatological references, sexual entendre, and anatomical focus that now populates many of the worst films coming out of Hollywood—from Spring Breakers to The Paperboy—often makes these films disturbing, not just stupid or slow-paced, to sit through.” Adam Sandler always seems to be trying too hard. His little baby voices are annoying. Jim Carey’s obviously fun. He may have been the last one to pull it off.

The obsession with sex and bathroom humor, along with the shoehorning in of “socially relevant” messages, prevents the flow of real fun, which doesn’t take things too seriously. Superhero movies are especially serious. In Rebel Moon, Zach Snyder remade Star Wars minus the fun.

Hey, no fair working Disney’s side of the street!