Review: Tag Is Simultaneously Innovative And Unimaginative
- Jun 21, 2018
- 3 min read
The first trailer for Tag (which, as always, can be found at the bottom) may have been one of the best trailers of the year. And while any good film buff knows not to base expectations off trailers, it wasn't unreasonable of me to think that it would be a very funny movie. And it was, at times...
Hoagie (Ed Helms), Chilli (Jake Johnson), Bob (Jon Hamm), Sable (Hannibal Buress), and Jerry (Jeremy Renner) have been playing the same game of tag, for one month a year, since 1983. When Hoagie shows up at Bob's company to tag him during a meeting with Rebecca Crosby (Annabelle Wallis), the three of them and Hoagie's wife Anna (Isla Fisher) head off to tag the others. When all the guys but Jerry are united, they formulate a plan to tag Jerry, who has never once been tagged. After being defeated, they learn that Jerry is getting married, and agree not to play tag during the wedding events in exchange for invites. But sure enough, the game starts up again as soon as a window of opportunity appears.
I don't really want to dive too heavily into the plot in the second half of the movie. As with all of these star-studded Hollywood comedies, the comedy almost completely takes a back seat to family and lessons about friendship. But it does take a couple of very strange, very dark turns that don't really make much sense to me tonally. I wanted to highlight these because they stand out to me even days after watching the movie and enjoying the rest of it.
As far as the comedy goes, I never say this but Hannibal Buress and Jeremy Renner are the highlights. 90% of the things I laughed at were either something I saw in the trailer, or something Hannibal said. The rest of it was mostly Jeremy Renner's character or the action scenes with him.
Said action scenes are the single best thing about this film. Whenever someone attempts to tag the untaggable Renner, the camera focuses on his face and goes slow-motion, and Renner's voiceover narrates his thought process as he fights off the others. These scenes are actually pretty well-choreographed, and very, very, funny.
So why do I say that Tag is innovative but unimaginative? Well, the core concept isn't something I've ever seen in a movie before. I watched a few clips of the actual tag enthusiasts before seeing the film, and found the film to be a great (and unexpectedly faithful, at the start) retelling of their story. It's a story you don't want to stop watching. But after the first part of the movie got me primed for some excellent action-comedy, I realised later that it was just like all the other standard American comedy blockbusters which are more focused on friendship and lessons than actual comedy. Especially after the needlessly dark final plot beat, I don't see in the slightest why this film had to become about the characters and their relationships rather than a hilarious original film about guys playing tag. It became a movie I've seen a thousand times before, rather than sticking to what made it good - a novel concept, and some hilarious action sequences.
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