Talladega Nights....

WARNING: spoiler, and possible bias ahead (being a nascar fan)

ok this should be an interesting post. Finally got to see the movie last night, contributing to it's very impressive opening weekend. After seeing it, I must say this surprises me for several reasons. First of all from the start, I didn't think it would have a big following outside of the Nascar crowd, though the box office numbers apparently prove me wrong. Secondly, it will be interesting to see how well it maintains this attention and interest, considering it didn't strike me as the movie that most people will want to see more than once (myself included more than likely). I would definitely say Anchorman was better, as in my opinion Talladega Nights, while it had its moments, just couldn't pull everything together to really develop the plot and make it interesting. I mean kid grows up without dad, takes to racing to prove himself, gets "injured" then returns with motivation to beat his enemy on the track (the French driver), while realizing he's doing it for himself not his dad. Not exactly very creative or original. In addition, the ending came off as rather contrived (I mean who didn't see that footrace coming?). That and the whole thing with the gay French driver got old and annoying pretty quick, I mean there were times where I was thinking they should have called it "Brokeback Racing". There were some funny lines ("don't snort these lucky charms") , and Ferrell was his usual wacky self. However I think as a Nascar Movie, Days of Thunder was better, and as a comedy, I'd go with Anchorman.

As a side note, I wonder how much Applebees paid for that. First time I've actually seen a commercial during a movie... granted it was part of the "satire" of Nascar's commercial obsession, however they could have done it with a fake company like the products Ricky Bobby was pitching in the beginning.