What Men Want

Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Tracey Morgan, Aldis Hodge, Josh Brener, Kellan Lutz, Jason Jones, Max Greenfield, Brian Bosworth, Richard Roundtree, Erykah Badu, Pete Davidson (uncredited)
Directed by: Adam Shankman
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
2019

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary:
After an accident, a woman (Taraji P. Henson) can hear the thoughts of men. She uses this information to get ahead in her sports agent job.

Review:

Tim: In principle, I loved the idea of doing a twist on 2000's What Women Want. That was a fairly solid Mel Gibson-Helen Hunt vehicle. That film had some issues, but the positives outweighed the negatives. So, it made sense to flip the narrative and the roles here, and give a woman the opportunity to hear the thoughts of men (although as many people have semi-jokingly commented, that would be a horror show in real life). While the idea here is solid, the execution is lacking. It's not that Adam Shankman's film is egregious, it's just significantly worse than it should be.

The basic outline of the story makes sense. Our protagonist needs to exist in a "man's" world, to give her ample opportunity to hear the thoughts of men around her. The story is most effective when it explores the unfair uphill climb that women need to face in most aspects of society, but certainly in a male-dominated one like professional athletics. This aspect of the script was one of the strongest. I wish the movie spent more time exploring this issue. It's a contemporary challenge- unequal pay for women doing the same job as men, women criticized for things like being aggressive, when they are celebrated in men, and on and on. There's huge discrepancies between the genders and I appreciated when the movie highlighted that.

Unfortunately, those poignant moments get lost in the desire to make this an R-rated comedy. The humor is where this film just falls on its face. Very little in this movie is actually humorous. Taraji P. Henson certainly puts a lot of effort into the physicality of her role, but the payoff is minuscule. Tracey Morgan is perhaps the most comedically talented individual in the cast and he's restrained significantly in what ends up feeling like a mostly dramatic supporting role. Jason Jones and Max Greenfield are too much of a caricature. Pete Davidson and Josh Brener do elicit some laughs, but not nearly enough to save this film.

Henson has proved she's a capable actress, but I thoroughly disliked her performance here. It felt like there was a mismatch between her talent and what this role needed. There were far too many moments where she's called upon to show this big, extreme emotion and nearly every time her performance comes across as forced and way, way too over-the-top. I cringed at multiple moments in this film because I didn't believe her reactions to things. Certainly, hearing the thoughts of men around you would be a panicky experience. I doubt a rational career woman like her would have reacted in the way she did. It just seemed silly and out of character. It was all done in a failed attempt to elicit laughs and it just didn't work. Henson is a talented actress but this was a miscasting. I was a bit disappointed in Tracey Morgan- not because of his performance (it's solid) but because he his talent wasn't fully leveraged. Josh Brener is definitely a standout and brought actual humor to the film. Aldis Hodge was excellent. I've been more and more impressed with him and his performance here hits the right notes. He's funny at times, dramatic at others, but his performance felt believable and authentic. Henson needed more restraint in her performance and Hodge's approach should have been the blueprint. It was great seeing Richard Roundtree in his supporting performance as well.

So many of this film's issues come from the script. While this is a loose remake of What Women Want, it felt like the association with that movie prevented this one from really embracing the story (why, I have no idea). The concept at the heart of this movie is brilliant, but it's never fully leveraged. This movie feels far too safe and color-by-numbers. It's a predictable movie that follows an obvious path and so rarely does anything unexpected or surprising. This is discouraging because there's a powerful message here about listening to other people. One of the most vivid lessons is that even if you have the power to hear others' thoughts, that gets you nothing unless you actually LISTEN to them and try to understand their perspective and point of view. That's a message that every human being needs to take to heart. It gets lost in this film amidst the attempts to be funny (which mostly fail).

Sure, there's a few solid things about this movie. However, if you're going to remake a movie, you need to at least try and improve on it. It's not like What Women Want was a modern classic. That film had a ton of flaws and this movie had the opportunity to actually improve on the original film. Instead, what feels like either lack of talent or simply laziness in an attempt to cash in on an idea makes this movie significantly worse than its source film. What Men Want had everyone opportunity to be a good movie, but the opportunity was squandered.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: What Women Want, Hidden Figures, Date Night