It's a shame, because "The Night Before" continues Rogen's string of movies in which his character and his costars engage in disreputable behavior en route to learning positive and even morally conservative life lessons. He has said in a Rolling Stone interview that "we make conservative movies for stoners," meaning he and his mentor Judd Apatow try to send conservative messages subversively into the kind of audience that would never consciously seek such messages out.
Marriage, fatherhood, and faith are all expounded upon favorably by the end of "The Night Before," but Catholic audiences should approach with extreme caution because there are plenty of moral pitfalls along the way. There is a place for outrageous and even raunchy humor since it is not possible to take it seriously and emulate it, but in a Christmas movie like this, it's harder than usual to justify.
"Love The Coopers" is the much safer bet for a movie the whole family can enjoy, as it features Diane Keaton and John Goodman as Charlotte and Sam Cooper. They're two former hippies who fell in love during the '60s and have been married for 40 years, although Sam is determined to leave her after the family's annual Christmas get-together.
Sam is frustrated that Charlotte has aged into a fearful, boring woman who has found multiple excuses not to go on Sam's dream vacation: an African safari. He sees her lack of adventures as symptomatic of much broader problems and is determined to break free, take the trip himself and start a new life before it's truly too late for him to go.
Their extensive family and friends have plenty of their own problems, including daughter Emma (Marisa Tomei), who was just caught shoplifting and has them all wondering where she's at. Meanwhile, son Hank (Ed Helms) has been dumped by his own wife for being stingy and uninspired, and a cute waitress (Amanda Seyfried) who's a friend of the Coopers is about to make a dramatic move that could break the heart of her favorite customer (Alan Arkin).
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"Love The Coopers" isn't as funny as "The Night Before," but it does have a fair share of laughs and exudes warmth and charm with solid performances bringing to life characters you come to care about deeply. With families often unable to agree on anything from dessert to what to watch on TV after the football game's over, these two choices make it easy for everyone to find something they'll like on their own terms.
On a final side note, "Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2" is out this weekend, and I have left it out of being my main review because it is the kind of movie that's critic-proof: those who want to see it will see it no matter what a critic says. But I'm happy to report that it is vastly better than last year's "Mockingjay Part 1," which provided almost no action and all talk in a tale of battling propaganda streams between lead heroes Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). This new film has all the payoffs for the entire series, as the final rebellion against evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is finally happening, and there are numerous impressive action setpieces.
As always in the series, there is no foul language, no sex and no nudity, but this one has some of the most intense action violence of the four-film series. There is an especially frightening sequence involving our heroes being chased by "mutts," a zombie-like mutant species of creatures that rampage after them in the capital city's sewers to amazing effect. It's an utterly stunning sequence, but is definitely more intense than anything else in the series and means that parents should take the PG13 rating seriously this time.
