They Came Together

If you like silly jokes and absurd gags, of the type of Leslie Nielsen movies, you will love this movie.

It's odd how our favourite TV star's movies slip right under the radar. You'd think the cast of Saturday Night Live and Paul Rudd's star power would be enough to gain some traction. Either way, they're having fun here in what seems to be a movie-length sketch. You have to know the comedy that they have in mind here. They Came Together is a satire, on the brink of a parody movie, but a clever take on rom-com conventions. They perpetuate them, sprinkling vulgarity in the sickly sweet clichés. It's an often hilarious film, although frequently misfires with jokes that aren't measured in the same way as the rest of the film. They're funny, but they don't make you laugh. Sometimes it spoils it with absurd moments of fantasy and it becomes the melodrama that it's pretending to be, but for the most part, it's a joy to watch a handful of your favourite comedians riff of each other and deconstruct the clichés they so often have to utilise when they get a chance on the silver screen. Killer cameos too. Worth watching if you're a Poehler or Rudd fan. Certainly beats David Wain's dire Role Models anyway.

7/10

For a movie that has a ton of very funny people, this is not a very funny film. The filmmaker seems to think repeating the clichés of a RomCom and winking sidelong at the audience makes the old clichés funny but really it doesn't. They're still tired and worn out clichés that make this difficult to sit through without getting bored. That is not good satire! I agree, it's difficult to send up a genre: Airplane and Galaxy Quest can't be made everyday. But I feel like this film is more in the same vein as the nth Scary Movie or Not Another Teen Movie: not worth the time to watch them. It's too bad because a lot of good talent goes to waste here.

Takes a lot of comedy risks & elaborate visual gags, like Mel Brooks & the Scary Movie franchise decided fo make a made-for-tv movie. The acting is taken seriously and even toned despite the hard to achieve "bad acting" done on purpose.

I hardly ever leave reviews, and I usually agree with IMDb ratings, but They Came Together is a clear exception. Sitting at a 5.6? That's criminally low for what's actually a smart, sharp, and wildly self-aware parody of romantic comedies. I'd personally put it around a 6.4 or 6.5, but I'm giving it a 7 to offset the people who clearly missed the point.

Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler are perfect together. Their comedic chemistry carries the film, and it's obvious they had a blast making it. The humor is absurd on purpose, sometimes subtle, sometimes over-the-top, but always intentional. It's supposed to feel ridiculous. That's the joke. If you go in expecting a traditional rom-com, you'll probably be confused. But if you understand it as a spoof in the spirit of Airplane! Or Wet Hot American Summer, it totally lands.

Is it silly? Absolutely. But that's the charm. It knows exactly what it is and never pretends otherwise. For fans of meta-humor, deadpan delivery, and rom-com clichés turned on their heads, this movie is a hidden gem.