Also saw What Men Want, the not-really-reboot-remake of Mel Gibson’s What Women Want… but kind of is. I guess. Not sure if this is officially a remake or if someone just took the plot and did a gender swap and threw on the title regardless. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.
What Men Want stars Taraji P. Henson as a sports agent who wants to break the glass ceiling and become a partner in her boy’s club company. She has big female sports stars under her wing but she realizes she needs to land a young up and coming male basketball star as he tries to make it into the NBA. One crazy night and some dosed tea later, she wakes up and realizes she can hear the thoughts of men (but not women). She uses this ability to outplay the men in her agency and to find out what the kid (and his crazy dad played by Tracey Morgan) wants for his representation.
This is a comedy… but not a very good one. I didn’t laugh much, though I did laugh so its not without its merits. I could end the review there, but a funny thing happened to this high-concept comedy… it’s actually a decent film about a woman trying to make it big in a male dominated business.
If they had literally cut out the “woman reads men’s thoughts” plot, they’d have had a better film. Because it makes a decent woman-in-the-workplace movie that manages to not fall for all the cliches. And it has some nice subplots and characters that exist solely on that side of the plot that are way more interesting than the supernatural mind reading stuff.
And, ultimately, the mind reading stuff doesn’t really matter to the movie. She doesn’t learn anything unique or interesting about men or what men want. Or at least nothing she couldn’t learn without the ESP.
So, yeah, this is a kind of a failure but an admirable one. I wish I didn’t spend two hours (it’s too long) not laughing very often in a comedy that should have focused on something else and dropped the gimmick. I’m not sure I can recommend the version of this movie that it is… though that might depend on how much you like Henson because, if you are a big fan, you might just love the movie anyway.
Score: 68