Sting or Stink?

“What about How Do You Know?”
“It's already started.”
“Morning Glory?”
“You've already seen it.”
“I know,” I say, shifting around uncomfortably, “but I wouldn't mind seeing it again.”
I wouldn't mind seeing anything but this, I think to myself, but know better than to say it aloud.
“Nope, Green Hornet it is!”
I let out an audible sigh and step up to the counter to pay R65 for a movie that I don't particularly want to see.
Like throwing money down the toilet.

We all get our tickets and make our way up the final escalator at Cavendish Square, arriving at the top of the shopping centre, and stand in another busy line for popcorn and drinks. I'm going to need something to distract me from the boredom, and food seems like the only option. After paying another R35 for snacks, rounding off the outing to R100 spent, we make our way into the theatre with it's armchair-like seats and I prepare myself for the ordeal.

The trailers start and Natasha and I chat loudly about which movies we want to see and those that we don't.
“This is a horror movie,” Natasha whispers as the preview for Never Say Never flashes across the screen, leading to uncontrollable giggling that doesn't stop until the movie is about to start.
Here it goes, I tell myself. No turning back now!

It starts off much the same as any other super-hero movie with a flashback to the past of the main character, some traumatic event that occurred to turn him into the person he is today. Typical. And then you catch a glimpse of the hero that he has become – the handsome, dashing, debonair, amaz... what a minute. Was that Seth Rogen? What's he doing there?

Before I knew it, what I had thought was an action movie has been turned into an action-comedy, a parody of the typical super-hero movies that I had come to fear, with a villainous hero, a far more super side-kick and a leading lady who is hardly wooed by either of the heroes and, in truth, hardly seen throughout the movie. What convinced Cameron Diaz to take on the role, I will never know, aside from her probably being paid a bundle of cash for a grand total of about 20 minutes on the screen.

Overall, the movie was hardly what I had expected. There were some genuinely entertaining bits spread amongst the tongue-in-cheek humour that just made me roll my eyes more than laugh out loud, but I enjoyed it in general. That isn't to say that I would pay to see it again, but I certainly felt like my money had been fished out of the toilet and put to a more deserving use – perhaps given to a car guard who would then go and spend it on some alcohol?