The Blues Brothers (1980)
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The Blues Brothers Movie Review
The Blues Brothers is a 1980 musical comedy film directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. It’s a very mediocre, silly flick.
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“Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension
of the Blues Brothers has been approved“
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Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts together his old band to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised. First and foremost, the plot is serviceable but only on the surface. Later down the line, the movie becomes utterly preposterous, which made it difficult for me to enjoy it. I disliked the immense silliness that was overly abundant here.
The car chases, the Neo-Nazis, the bomb detonations, a dangerous woman pursuing them and so on and so forth. All of these elements made for a ludicrous plot that is not as funny as the movie thinks it is. I do realize that those who grew up in the eighties are used to this stuff and they may adore it, but I was bored by it, especially because of its excessive runtime.
Musical comedies should not be over two hours long. Thus, this movie was too tiresome. It is also loud and obnoxious with the action scenes taking up too much of the runtime with the car chases being overlong and dull.
What did not get tiresome was the music, the sole reason to see this otherwise bad movie. I loved it. It’s the classic blues soundtrack with many iconic songs in its roster such as Think, Jailhouse Rock and Everybody Needs Somebody to Love. Think was probably my favorite and I loved Aretha Franklin’s presence here quite a bit and I wanted more of her. It was also great seeing Ray Charles and so many iconic blues singers. The movie honored black culture and blues music so wonderfully and that is its biggest accomplishment.
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The Blues Brothers was at its best when dealing with those musical scenes as they were infectiously fun and so damn energetic, especially when incorporating these classic black performers. But the characterization is simply terrible and the acting ain’t all that great either as both John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, though fine, aren’t particularly memorable or likable as their characters could get quite annoying at times. The direction from John Landis is one of his weakest too, leading to one of the most overrated movies from the eighties.
Although its soundtrack is excellent and the musical sequences are infectiously energetic and fun, the action and comedy scenes in The Blues Brothers are nothing of the sort – they are too ridiculous and dumb to be taken seriously. The movie overall is very mediocre as its plot is silly and the runtime is needlessly excessive, making it quite tiresome to sit through, but at least those musical numbers lifted things up considerably.
My Rating – 3
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