Movie Review: ‘MAN UP’ – Simon Pegg Romantic Comedy – Charming, Quirky and loads of fun!

‘Man Up’ is a British Romantic Comedy that stars Simon Pegg as Jack, a man going on a blind date with a mystery woman, and Lake Bell as Nancy who ends up unexpectedly going on that date, but unknown to Jack she is not the mystery woman he expected (Wow, just thinking about it, that could also be an interesting synopsis for some sort of mystery thriller…). Anyway this film has a good amount of the romance you can expect and it also has its fair share of quirky humour and was very well balanced throughout. The overall tone of the film was very quirky and also very charming as you see these two people who initially seem to be complete opposites grow on each other into what was a rather entertaining and unlikely love story. I say ‘people’ rather than characters because the writing and performances of these two people were so well done that it made them feel very down to earth and relatable. They were just so fun to watch and had great personalities that you see clearly evolve over the course of the movie.

It was also such a well written movie for the most part, the charming romantic scenes in particular were handled great, and the small little bits of comedy that is slid into the dialogue here and there was great at making for plenty of unexpected laughs. Also the film seemed to play out very unexpectedly as well, almost the entire film takes place in the very short time-frame of 1 day so it is able to tell a complete continuous story with no major skipping of time and that really worked for this film. By doing that, the film-makers kind of restricted themselves from putting in a lot of the usual scenarios you expect to see in your average rom-com. Thankfully, this is not one of your run-of-the-mill cliche rom-coms and provides enough new to stand out a little on its own while still giving you what you love about these films.

Where i would say the film was a bit of a let down was with the balancing of the tones, as i mentioned previously, the comedy and charming romance was well balanced but the more slower, deeper, meaningful, sadder scenes felt a little out of place tonally. They make sense to have in the story especially because they do pay off in the end but while the film was going on i didn’t think the transitions from the scene i was just laughing at into the scene i should be emotional in was very well done. But that was really the only thing i had an issue with, the supporting cast otherwise was good, not a lot of focus was on that supporting cast so it did allow for lots of time to spend with the main characters.

In the end this is a solid romantic comedy, better than any i can remember seeing recently. Very well acted, great romance, hilarious quirky humour, good writing, and just a charming enjoyable film, so if you enjoy rom-coms, this one i think you would also enjoy. – 7.2