Run Fat Boy Run Does Pegg, Audience No Favors

By Katey Rich

 

Comedians, more than any other kind of actor, quickly develop themselves as a brand. With a few exceptions, you know what you will get from an Adam Sandler movie, a Will Ferrell movie, or, in earlier days, a Jim Carrey movie. Outliers are either clear from the start that they won't be what the fans expect (Punch-Drunk Love for Sandler, Stranger than Fiction for Ferrell), or quickly rejected at the box office.

Simon Pegg is on his way to building a similar brand for himself in America, after the low-key success of both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. He's beloved among a small group of fanatics, but largely unknown to the population at large, which makes any risks at this point especially dangerous. If you're still trying to get people to just take a look at you, you need to show them the best stuff, the stuff that will make you famous.

That's why Run, Fat Boy, Run is such a bewildering mistake on Pegg's part. He re-wrote the screenplay with another comedian known in small circles for a distinctive brand of comedy, Michael Ian Black. The pairing is a dream come true for some comedy fans, but somewhere between picking David Schwimmer as director and pretending Pegg is the "fat boy," the whole thing goes horribly wrong. Run, Fat Boy, Run is not at all the subversive and silly comedy it could have been. Instead, it's exactly what you would expect from the posters, which feature Pegg in running clothes bearing the slogan "Erectile Dysfunction Awareness." Har har.

Up against Superhero Movie this weekend, Fat Boy actually stands out of an example of comedy done competently, with actual effort for jokes and actual talent onscreen. But it's so mainstream and so bland that the only thing special about it is Pegg himself, who proves that he's got leading man qualities if he ever finds someone willing to exercise them. Oh, and Hank Azaria, who is so well-known for his many voices on "The Simspons" that it's a shock to see him naked onscreen, totally ripped. He may be the voice of Comic Book Guy, but he sure doesn't resemble him.

In short: Don't get your hopes up for Fat Boy. Any given 10 minutes of Shaun of the Dead would probably elicit as many laughs as the entire movie does. But hold out hope for Simon Pegg, whose big-screen stardom just got a little more distant but is still totally possible.