It was almost It's been 30 years since Vince Vaughn first appeared on big screens as Trent, the skilled and confident friend of Mikey, played by Jon Favreau, in The SwingersVaughn was forever convinced that a trip to Las Vegas could solve any romantic problem. In the decades since, Vaughn has never lost that indomitable presence, though some projects have utilized those talents better than others. Age comes to all of us, so it seems fitting that in his final role, as Florida police officer Andrew Yancey in Apple's bad monkeyHe was mature enough to warn someone that any trip to Las Vegas should be limited to one night. But even given the years, bad monkey He does as good a job of weaponizing Vaughn's chatter as any role he's played since. wedding party crashers.
When we meet Yancy, his life seems to be falling apart, but it soon becomes clear that this has always been the case. He’s been suspended from the Key West police force after assaulting his girlfriend Bonnie’s (Michelle Monaghan) abusive husband, and his partner Rogelio (John Ortiz) seems relieved to have gotten a small reprieve from Yancy’s antics. His path to getting his badge back involves a series of indignities, including a temporary job as a local health inspector, where he discovers how disgusting a restaurant kitchen can be, and the bizarre task of trying to convince Miami coroner Rosa (Natalie Martinez) to seize a severed arm that a tourist picked up on a fishing trip in the Keys.
At every job, Yancey brings enthusiasm and a relentless stream of nonsense. When Rosa catches him quoting the introductory narration of real world When asked, he didn’t hesitate to reply, “In my defense, I thought you were too young to know that.” When an FBI official warned him that he needed to take a case easy, Yancey insisted, “I still have the hots and the hots, but this time I’ve added a little charm.”
Many of the people Yancy meets find him exhausting, but Rosa is surprised by her inability to resist him, even after a friend warns her that Yancy is a “human anchor” who will drag her down with him. Viewers will certainly side with Rosa on this one. It’s an incredibly winning performance from Vaughn, and the writing by Ted Lasso Series co-creator Bill Lawrence and others make it clear throughout that Yancy realizes he's full of lies, and that lying is the only way he knows how to deal with the world.
Once, when Lawrence was running ExfoliantsHe became one of several producers who tried and failed to make a new version of Gregory MacDonald's novel. Fletch Books with Exfoliants Lead actor Zach Braff is set to star. Braff would have been a total flop in the role (and Greg Mottola finally made a great movie about Fletch, Admit it, Fletch.(With Jon Hamm, who unfortunately no one had seen before two years ago). Somehow, bad monkey This film seems to be Lawrence's reboot, with Vaughn perfectly suited to skewer his way through a comedic mystery. (Braff, on the other hand, has a small but effective role here, as a disgraced former doctor who goes by the pseudonym Israel Oppel.)
But Lawrence also adapted the actual source material, a 2013 book by Carl Hiaasen. Hiaasen, a former newspaper reporter, has a long and impressive list of novels that tend to share the following elements: a South Florida setting, a cynical protagonist whose career has seen better days, nasty real estate developers, and criminals who have increasingly strange things happen to them over the course of each book. (In an early book, tight skinThe main thug gets bitten on the hand by a barracuda, and decides to tie a lawnmower to the trunk.) bad monkey The film has all of these elements, plus its own details, including a large part of the story taking place on a small island in the Bahamas where young fisherman Neville (Ronald Peet) owns a pet capuchin monkey.
Related to Driggs plays Crystal, the busiest monkey in show business, who has been involved in everything from American pie to communityto
The Fabelman Family
Despite the show's title, Crystal doesn't actually get much to do.
Meredith Hagner and Robert Delaney in “Bad Ape”. Bob Mahoney/Apple TV+ Hiaasen's books seem well suited to adaptation, but this has rarely happened. StripteaseIt was a notoriously bad film, and before that the only film to hit theaters was the 2006 version of his young adult novel. shouted Hiaasen's absurdist tone proves more elusive on screen than on the page; Striptease The film doesn't work largely because Demi Moore plays her role too seriously. But Lawrence, Vaughn, and everyone around her bad monkey
The ensemble understands the mission. It’s never presented as a complete joke, and some of the best moments are when actors like Vaughn, Turner Smith, and Robert Delaney (a shady businessman who falls for Eve’s merciless and brutal captivity, played brilliantly by Meredith Hagner) acknowledge the heavy emotions that would be part of a plot with a lot of violence. But Lawrence and the cast and director (led by Marcos Siega) are able to deliver those scenes while allowing the series to be ridiculous at least 90 percent of the time. Weird things keep happening, and bad monkeyHe enjoys every weird part of it.
From his other books naked swimmingIt's been in TV development hell for years, set up at various points at The CW, HBO, and… Quibi. Remember Quibi? Tom Nowicki, a swashbuckling character actor, has a small role as a fishing boat captain, but he’s everywhere as narrator, with two important responsibilities: 1.) to keep the audience’s hand going through an increasingly nonsensical plot, and 2.) to capture the eerie voice of Hiaasen’s writing. When Bonnie starts flirting to get herself out of a bad situation, for example, the narrator jokes, “Ten bucks if you can guess what happened next.” Between all the voiceover and the frequent use of songs,With Tom Petty from the Sunshine State (many of them covers, but some by the late great Heartbreaker himself), the whole thing sounds very Florida, in the best possible way. Although the soundtrack is mostly Petty, there are a few distracting instances that include popular songs used by other movies or shows, including
, cheap fantasy and
Anatomy of a Fall But the show also finds ways to cleverly quote Edith Wharton and Richard Russo, so it has references in mind throughout. Most popular
The story has no business filling 10 episodes, which even Bad Monkey occasionally admits: “I probably could have been more emotional,” Yancy tells Bonnie after their final breakup on camera, “but this is the fifth time you’ve said goodbye to me.” But Vaughn is so good, the entire cast (which also includes Scott Glenn as Yancy’s quiet dad, and Alex Moffat as a developer with what Yancy describes as “the most beatable face I’ve ever seen not on a golf course”) is so fun, and the atmosphere is so strong, that the mystery quickly becomes beside the point. The season covers the entire book, but the final scene leaves the door open for more adventures by Andrew Yancy. By this point, you may, like me, be yearning to spend more time with this fast-talking man and his surreal little corner of the world. The first two episodes of Bad Monkey will begin streaming on Apple TV+ on August 14, with additional episodes released weekly. I’ve watched all 10.
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