Film Review: Game Night (2018)
Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Game Night is an action-comedy (some have said dark comedy, I'd disagree) which follows a group of our lead couple's (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams - who steals the show) friends as they participate in a murder mystery game-night. Things get turned upside down when a real mystery happens simultaneously. It becomes unclear what is the game, and what is real.
I'm reviewing this mainly as a comedy. Although it does have some twists along the way these are more there to make you laugh than to keep you guessing what might happen next. As a comedy it works pretty well, it's pacey, entertaining and there are plenty of laughs to be had.
However, I'd say the jokes miss as much as they hit and the film overused certain jokes which were not that funny to begin with. I found the 'stupid-guy' character particularly annoying and one-dimensional, and the ending used a few of the clichés I'd hoped Hollywood might have left behind.
Overall I like the idea of the premise and there's plenty of fun to be had here. I just feel it might have worked better as a psychological thriller with comedy elements, or indeed as a much darker comedy. As it is it's just a decent comedy, nothing more, nothing less.