Failure to Launch (2006)

Originally Reviewed

Monday July 3, 2006

Failure to Launch is a movie for all of us guys moving onto their early to mid twenties and still living at home with no signs of moving out. Matthew McConaughey plays Trip, a 35 year old thrill seeker who still lives at home with his parents. He has no social disabilities, and has plenty of skills with the ladies, he simply doesn't want to get into a serious relationship and he's very comfortable living at home. So Trip lives an enjoyable life and when he senses the girl he's dating wants to start a more serious, long-term relationship he brings them home and when they find out he still living with his parents... well that's usually the end of the relationship

Trip's parents are getting tired of him still living at home, they put up with it for sometime because of a rather tragic experience he had gone through, but that was years ago and now they're getting a little frustrated. They then learn about an interventionist who will get your son to move out of house by dating them for a period of time and building them the self confidence they need to get out there into the world on their own.

The only problem is Trip doesn't match the typical profile of the usual client that Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker) is used to dealing with. Nothing is wrong with Trip he has no self confidence issues or social problems, so he quickly flies through her steps, the whole time she believes she’s doing a great job. But things start to take a different turn when Trip brings her home for the "meet the parents" move, which sends Paula and Trip both for a loop. Paula doesn't run out of the house like she's supposed to and Paula discovers that this move is Trip's way of getting her to dump him. Now she's got to go into uncharted territory to get her plan to work and for Trip to fall for her, ultimately leading to Trip and Paula falling in love with each other for real, and then a can of worms is opened and the truth about them both slowly begins to leak out. 

Failure To Launch is your typical romantic comedy that does "fail to launch" in the sense of launching in any new ideas into a genre of film that seems to have been milked dry of anything new and original. Is this bad? No, it's actually pretty entertaining and very funny for the most part, but it's nothing new. If I had to compare it, it's very similar to McConaughey's other romantic comedy, How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, where his love interest is essentially leading him on for a job, and then ends up actually falling for him.

I have to say I did enjoy this film a little more than that one, and Sarah Jessica Parker actually didn't get on my nerves as I expected she would, which was a surprise. Some of my favorite scenes were when Trip is getting attacked by all the "harmless" animals, and the cameo by Patton Oswalt, who plays Spence on King Of Queens. He's another "client" of Paula's who she was trying to help move out of his parent’s house, that scene was hilarious.

In the end Failure To Launch is an entertaining film, it doesn't offer anything new, and is a semi rip off of How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, but it does offer a lot of laughs and is worth a rent if you’re into romantic comedies. My only real negative thing to say about this film is I could have done without the multiple shots of Terry Bradshaw’s naked butt... that was disturbing and way too long. 

7/10