Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Crass and crude in equal measure, Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson ultimately prove to be one of the best buddy pairings in recent memory.

Reynolds plays a former Executive Protection Agent (triple-A as he’s fond of telling people). Jackson plays a professional assassin. Interpol is conducting a trial of former Belerussian dictator Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman), accused of heinous war crimes against his own people. Jackson is their star witness and when his security escort detail is compromised and almost entirely slaughtered, his remaining agent (Elodie Yung) contacts her ex-boyfriend Michael Bryce (Ryenolds) to escort Darius Kincaid (Jackson) to The Hague.

That’s the entire complexity of the plot. A straight-forward narrative with a few small twists at intervals, but it’s largely a chance for Reynolds and Jackson to ply their skilled comedic abilities into a consistently entertaining, if often predictable, R-rated riot. Reynolds, who cut his teeth on television sitcom Two Guys, A Girl, and A Pizza Place, is no stranger to comedy, but until his bravura performance in Deadpool, it was hard to see him as a sufficient anchor to a comedy film. Jackson has had more success in recent years in the genre, but paired with Reynolds, their dynamic is so engaging and believable, you get lost in this far-fetched laugher.

Boo! A Madea Halloween

Tyler Perry has been churning out movies for over a decade now and while a few have seemed appealing, this is the first I’ve actually sat down to watch. Thanks to the new trailer for the sequel to Boo! A Madea Halloween, I decided to give his drag persona a chance. While I wasn’t precisely impressed, I wasn’t entirely disappointed.

The premise is that of a father (Perry) whose unruly 17-year-old daughter (Diamond White) wants to attend a frat Halloween party against his wishes. He engages the services of his aunt Madea (Parry in drag) to house sit and watch over her. His daughter still manages to sneak out after scaring Madea and the friends she’s brought with her (Aunt Bam, Aunt Hattie, and Perry’s father, also played by Perry). As her scheme unravels, pranks are carried out on both sides as the film settles into a moral about family and obedience.

Crass humor and heavy moralizing are a key component to the film. Although the trailer suggested this was going to be a horror film mixed with Perry’s brand of humor, the horror elements are notably insufficient. There are some creepy scenes, but they are played more for high comedy than for scares. Scary Movie this most certainly is not. The sermonizing gets patronizing at times and while there are some clever comic moments late in the film, the whole feels very inefficient and forced.

Office Space

Anyone who’s ever worked in an office environment can immediately identify with the various characters in Office Space, the film based on the popular Mike Judge animated shorts of the same name. Centered in the fictional company Initech, Peter (Ron Livingston) has grown tired of his work existence and seeks help from a hypnotherapist. There, as the doctor dies before him, he comes to the realization that he just doesn’t care enough anymore. Skipping work or being openly honest to his coworkers, Peter works with his friends Michael (David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu) on a plan to bilk the company out of small amounts of money over time.

As the film slowly becomes more ludicrous, what was identifiable about the film starts to shift into the bizarre. It becomes less a familiar office comedy and more an indictment of corporate ennui. That doesn’t give it any less relevance, but the film gets less and less humorous as it drags on. By the time you reach the end, all the characters seem so smug and inauthentic that it’s no longer possible to fully sympathize with them.

Judge came to prominence with his hit animated series Beavis and Butt-Head. This allowed him to branch into various venues, including film and video games. That smug humor was evident in his Fox animated series King of the Hill, which may be a significant factor in whether one enjoys Office Space. The same kind of biting humor that feels more mean-spirited at times than funny. His work is less nuanced than something that might have come from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but is also sometimes more subtle. The film is engaging for anyone who’s spent time in a corporate office environment, but might not connect well with others.