You should see the new Entourage movie. Not because it’s a great movie, which it isn’t. Not because it’s the funniest comedy out in theaters — by Thursday night, Spy should win that contest easily. No, you should see Entourage because you’re a Bro and you loved the original TV show (until maybe you didn’t) and you just like hanging out with these guys.
At its best, that’s exactly what Doug Ellin’s 104-minute episode, I mean movie, is — a chance to catch up with old friends. Think of it like that one big weekend you and your high school or college buddies take every year where you blitzkrieg through NOLA or Vegas in 48 hours and before you know it, it’s Sunday, you’re curled up in fetal position at gate B23 waiting for your flight home, and you find yourself reflecting on how much you fucking love your old crew … and how happy you are that you won’t see most of them again until next year.
Were we ever looking for anything more out of any new season or movie version of Entourage anyway? Of course not.
So here’s the basic plot: Ari now runs Warner Bros., and his first big $100 million movie, Hyde, not only stars Vincent Chase and his brother Drama, but Vinny is directing it too. Unfortunately, Mentos Boy-turned-Aquaman-turned-Scorsese Wannabe won’t show the first cut of his movie to Ari. He says he needs more money to finish the flick, which will entail convincing crazy Texan father-son co-financiers played by Billy Bob Thornton and Haley Joel Osment to pony up some more dough. That’s about it.
Ari steals the show, as always, even if he’s been doing some Zen-level work to control his anger issues — which is nice for Mrs. Ari, even if we lose out on a full-blown “ADAM DAVIES!”-style rampage. That said, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Crazy Ari, but I’ll hold off on my predictions until the end.
Vince is Vince — boring, per usual, even with the extra responsibility he’s carrying as director. He successfully bounces from Alice Eve (ex-wifey-to-be, never seen) to Nina Agdal to Emily Ratajkowski, so he’s got that going for him, even if we never see him sleep with any of them. If you picked up this year’s Swimsuit Issue you saw more skin from Nina and Emily than you will in this entire movie.
E’s storyline was a misfire for me. He’s the lead producer on a Hollywood blockbuster that’s apparently in trouble, his (and our) dream girl Sloan is pregnant and practically begging for them to get back together (why were they ever apart again? something about a stepmother?), and yet all he cares about is that he’s having too much sex with other women. We feel your pain, E, we really do. His only saving grace is the classic look on his face after drinking a molly-and-Viagra-infused bottle of water. Can’t wait for the gifs of that one.
Drama provides his typical comic relief as he seems to hit the tipping point of believing what everyone already knows: that he really can’t act. (I keep waiting for him to say screw it and become a personal chef to other stars.) He also soon finds himself on TMZ for all the wrong reasons.
And even if it takes Turtle a while to get things going with love interest Ronda Rousey, at least he finally has his shit together — which you can’t quite say for the others. (The running joke about just how much money he made on that Avion tequila deal works well.)
The cameos are ridiculous, of course — some are blink and you miss them; others, like Gronk and T.I., you wish had 2 minutes instead of 2 seconds. The girls are gorgeous and T&A abounds, but once again it’s nearly all to the benefit of E, who should be home reading baby books to Sloan!
Is it funny? Sure, it has its moments. So did the show (which Ellin always described as a “dramedy”), with Ari and Drama running up the score on the others.
And so there you’ll be, when all is said and done, hungover at McCarran Airport, waiting to board your flight, trying to remember the highlights of what you just experienced, and ultimately deciding that it doesn’t really matter because any weekend spent with your bros is a weekend well spent.
Warning! Spoilers to follow!
I should just leave it there, and that’s probably where Ellin and HBO should too, but since back in the day I used to use my reviews/recaps to try to guess as to what might come next, I will say that I’m at a point with these characters where I actually wouldn’t mind seeing another full season of them. And here lies spoilers, so beware. I want to see Ari turn into Harvey Weinstein, with E as his #2 at his mega production company. That dynamic of them actually working together would be hilarious and a rollercoaster of tirades. I still think Vince belongs on a hit TV series on Netflix or HBO, but not the meta Entourage-style dramedy that’s hinted at in the credits sequence — is Vince too pretty for True Detective Season 3? Meanwhile, I want to watch Drama experience his newfound fame, and perhaps most of all, I want Turtle to turn into a real Mark Cuban, not just some movie star’s driver who got lucky. How about it HBO? Is Season 9 in the cards?