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What Men Want
An energetic performance by Taraji P. Henson is the centerpiece of 2019's What Men Want, a long-winded re-imagining of a 1999 film that suffers from an overblown and over-complicated story that didn't need all the "help" that this film tries to provide.
Henson plays Ali Davis, a sports agent at a large agency who is feeling shut out because she's a woman. She has just lost a bid for partner because most her clients are Olympic athletes instead of baseball, basketball, and football players. She learns she has a chance at redeeming herself if she can sign a college basketball prodigy named Jamal Barry.
Ali goes to a bachelorette party where a fortune teller tells her exactly what's going on with her life and gives her a magical tea to help her with her problem. Later on the dance floor, Ali hits her head and when she regains consciousness in the hospital, discovers that she has the ability to hear what all men are thinking.
If this plotline sounds familiar, it might because back in 1999 Mel Gibson appeared in a film called What Women Want where he played an ad executive who gets partially electrocuted and when he comes to, he can hear what all women are thinking. But in this new "Me too" society we're living in, the director and screenwriter decided this story was ripe for a gender switch. The screenwriters for What Women Want are given onscreen credit for this screenplay, but this one gets a little too bogged down in female empowerment instead of just concentrating on this woman taking advantage of her new found ability.
One main difference between this film and the 1999 film is that this protagonist doesn't keep the secret to herself. She tells her assistant and the fortune teller because she thinks that the magic tea was the cause. Even if it was the cause, I was wondering what she thought the fortune teller could do about. She tells Ali from jump that the tea is a very recent discovery and knows very little about it herself. It also seemed to take Ali a lot longer to get a handle on what this power could do for her, something the Mel Gibson character didn't have too much trouble with. It takes forever to get to the requisite happy ending, which is conveniently wrapped up in a neat little bow that was just a little too neat.
Director Adam Shankman has employed top-notch production values and a large cast to pull off this caper and a lot of the large cast is wasted in thankless roles. Henson works hard in the starring role, but she gets to be exhausting, thanks to the film's extreme over length. Brian Bosworth was surprisingly effective as her boss as was veteran Richard Roundtree as Ali's father. Aldis Hodge is strong and sexy as the single dad/romantic interest who Ali uses and abuses to help her land Jamal and Tracy Morgan was funny as Jamal's dad. Josh Brener impressed as Ali's assistant and SNL's Pete Davidson appears unbilled as Brener's secret office crush. Have to give a shout out to singer Eryka Badu, who was surprisingly funny as the fortune teller. A whole lot of money and talent went into re-thinking a movie that really didn't need to be re-thought. .
An energetic performance by Taraji P. Henson is the centerpiece of 2019's What Men Want, a long-winded re-imagining of a 1999 film that suffers from an overblown and over-complicated story that didn't need all the "help" that this film tries to provide.
Henson plays Ali Davis, a sports agent at a large agency who is feeling shut out because she's a woman. She has just lost a bid for partner because most her clients are Olympic athletes instead of baseball, basketball, and football players. She learns she has a chance at redeeming herself if she can sign a college basketball prodigy named Jamal Barry.
Ali goes to a bachelorette party where a fortune teller tells her exactly what's going on with her life and gives her a magical tea to help her with her problem. Later on the dance floor, Ali hits her head and when she regains consciousness in the hospital, discovers that she has the ability to hear what all men are thinking.
If this plotline sounds familiar, it might because back in 1999 Mel Gibson appeared in a film called What Women Want where he played an ad executive who gets partially electrocuted and when he comes to, he can hear what all women are thinking. But in this new "Me too" society we're living in, the director and screenwriter decided this story was ripe for a gender switch. The screenwriters for What Women Want are given onscreen credit for this screenplay, but this one gets a little too bogged down in female empowerment instead of just concentrating on this woman taking advantage of her new found ability.
One main difference between this film and the 1999 film is that this protagonist doesn't keep the secret to herself. She tells her assistant and the fortune teller because she thinks that the magic tea was the cause. Even if it was the cause, I was wondering what she thought the fortune teller could do about. She tells Ali from jump that the tea is a very recent discovery and knows very little about it herself. It also seemed to take Ali a lot longer to get a handle on what this power could do for her, something the Mel Gibson character didn't have too much trouble with. It takes forever to get to the requisite happy ending, which is conveniently wrapped up in a neat little bow that was just a little too neat.
Director Adam Shankman has employed top-notch production values and a large cast to pull off this caper and a lot of the large cast is wasted in thankless roles. Henson works hard in the starring role, but she gets to be exhausting, thanks to the film's extreme over length. Brian Bosworth was surprisingly effective as her boss as was veteran Richard Roundtree as Ali's father. Aldis Hodge is strong and sexy as the single dad/romantic interest who Ali uses and abuses to help her land Jamal and Tracy Morgan was funny as Jamal's dad. Josh Brener impressed as Ali's assistant and SNL's Pete Davidson appears unbilled as Brener's secret office crush. Have to give a shout out to singer Eryka Badu, who was surprisingly funny as the fortune teller. A whole lot of money and talent went into re-thinking a movie that really didn't need to be re-thought. .