Movies in Review: "Chips"

I can't say I watched Chips the television series much, but I knew enough about it to be familiar when I watched the trailer for the movie. The film surprisingly caught my interest more than the trailer ever did. Of course, I think a lot of the credit goes to Michael Pena starring in it. I am a huge Pena fan, and will take my chances with going to see anything he's cast in. I think he does a great job with any character he plays, be it drama or comedy, he hits it on the nail. I thought the trailer for Chips was hysterical, so I was definitely looking forward to seeing this one. I expected it to be somewhat corny, but still funny...

Unfortunately this movie was more corny than funny. It took a minute for the comedy to actually get good, at least half way through the film before I laughed, and this wasn't for a lack of trying. In my opinion Dax Shepard's character Jon Baker was dry as hell. That whole bicycle injury thing wasn't funny no matter how hard he went at it. The only time it was funny was with the tub scene, which was the funniest scene in the film. Shepard and Pena weren't the best comedic duo, but that could have had a deal to do with the direction of the story. It was a little all over the place, especially at the beginning and didn't have a strong focus. Pena was cool, but could have been great with a better comedic partner. Once the comedy finally got better, the storyline got cornier though...very unfortunate. I honestly can't remember some of the final scenes in the film, it was that forgettable ~shrugs.

I wasn't expecting this film to be great, but I was definitely expecting a great deal more than what I got. I laughed at one scene, and maybe chuckled through a few others. It rated low on humor, and very high on corny, not a very good combination. This movie wasn't a compliment to the television series, but instead more of a forgettable mess...D+