By Ryan Parsons | Images property of Columbia Pictures
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
After the release of the humorous trailer for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby back in February, Columbia Pictures has already conducted the first early screening for the film.
How does it look? Well, considering that the film is far from finished, the first report to appear online is extremely positive.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Screened
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby features a cast that includes Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sascha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb and Jane Lynch in a comedy about a slightly over-the-top NASCAR driver.
According to the first report on Talladega Nights, it looks like Columbia Pictures is testing out the parts of the film that were adlibbed by Ferrell and company in order to see which dialogue hits and which doesn't. Because of this, the film's current running time is pushing the two-hour mark. Since it is very likely that a portion of the adlibbed material will miss, we can expect this running time to drop significantly when these lower-rated adlibbed scenes are removed.
The movie's plot has the same structure as other sports movies like ROCKY III, BLUE CRUSH and, yes, DAYS OF THUNDER where an athlete soars to great heights very quickly, then gets beaten or injured, sinks to depths never before imagined only to find a new trainer, work really hard and eventually claim his or her rightful place atop the sporting scene's highest mountain top. TALLADEGA NIGHTS hits all of these story beats, but also tweaks or sends them up making it feel kind of like an elongated SOUTH PARK episode.
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have great chemistry and do nice riffs on good ol' boys. Farrell isn't quite as over the top as the trailer led me to believe which I liked. Definitely dialed down from ANCHORMAN. Sacha Baron Cohen's character is a combination of Borat and Bruno (which I didn't think was possible). He has one great scene where he threatens to break Ferrell's arm, but after that he isn't really given much to do.
I would have never imagined seeing Rocky III, Blue Crush and Days of Thunder all used in the same sentence until seeing this early report. Ferrell excels at playing a character who hits bottom and should definitely have his moments in this film; remember the phone booth scene in Anchorman?
Check out the entire review for Talladega Nights over at AICN.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby will be released to theatres on August 4th.
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