Ms. Spenser had some work to catch up on, so I dug up some recent movies that she would have no desire to watch. For example. the recent Melissa McCarthy AI comedy, Superintelligence (2020).
It starts in a Seattle farmers' market, where we meet McCarthy. She is volunteering for an animal shelter, trying to get dogs adopted. She gets a call from sassy black (gay?) best friend, Brian Tyree Henry, who brings us up to speed: She hasn't had a date since she dropped her long-term boyfriend, creative writing professor Bobby Cannavale and quit her high-tech job to start volunteering with multiple charities. He convinces her to interview for a job at a start up run by a college buddy. It goes poorly (but pretty funny). But through the security camera, someone is watching.
That someone (or something!) calls her the next day. It's an artificial superintelligence that sounds just like James Corden (because she loves James Corden) that has just become aware. He (it?) wants to observe her, help her out, and depending on how she reacts, either help humanity, enslave it, or destroy it.
Well there's the setup. She calls Henery, who works for Microsoft, because the AI isn't trying to keep itself a secret. Henry goes to the government, eventually getting the president, a Hilary-esque Jean Smart, involved - and the military.
But mostly the AI is concerned with getting McCarthy back together with Cannavale. He plots for her to run into him at a supermarket, which turns out awkward. He got a job at a college in Ireland and is moving in three days. He doesn't think it's a good idea for them to hang out. But you know they will.
And here is the crux of the movie - this relationship. Cannavale is a very dorky man-child. Him and McCarthy do kid around a lot, but he is also a serious dork. He loves air travel, and is excited when the SI surreptitiously upgrades him to Business class. McCarthy takes him to a ballgame and Ken Griffey Jr. meets him, due to a generous donation the AI made in her name. And Cannavale sort of forgets McCarthy is there. He doesn't think too much about McCarthy dropping back into his life, and doesn't think much about leaving her for good to go to Ireland. I think we are supposed to understand that McCarthy hurt him when she left, but it's possible he barely noticed. He is so uninterested in her that you expect the movie to be about her finding someone nicer.
But it isn't. It's about the way that she loves him for what he is, and for what they had. She never tells him about the AI, although she told Henry and he told the government. The AI tries to help her "win him back" (in the movie, McCarthy calls this "making things right"), and she doesn't do it by showing off her newfound wealth and AI power - she tries to give him things he really likes, like dumplings at Pike Place Market. And when the world is about to end, she spends the evening packing his apartment up for his trip, and even sends him to the airport early, and promises to finish up the job herself.
And I don't know how to feel about all this. It was at times sweet, at other times infuriating. Cannavale's character was no prize, but McCarthy wasn't so great either - awkward, self-sabotaging, unsure. Not to mention looking very average. Sorry, but when they do the makeover scene and put her into outrageous clothes, she never gets anything flattering or even interesting (except the jacket made of pants). So maybe they deserve each other. Maybe they love each other - or even, she loves him and he's ok with her. Don't know.
Anyway, they say the AI picked her because she was so average. But she was actually an exec at Yahoo, and devoted her life to charity. Like Cannavale is a beloved professor of creative writing, and a clueless man-boy. So I feel like the Rom-Com part of this was the most interesting (?) but least successful.
Of course, the AI stuff is fun and maybe not that otiginal. Having James Corden play the AI as a practical joker who is still working on the line between funny and mean was a good source of comedy. I wouldn't have minded more of that, less of the romance. And I don't even know who James Corden is.
I actually like Melissa McCarthy a lot - but I almost never like her movies, at least not all the way. I should probably stop trying to watch them.
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