Average Movie with a Great Movie Hidden Inside

This was an average movie with a great movie hidden somewhere in there that was never achieved. I feel like it had a lot of unfulfilled potential. There was easily a 4* movie somewhere in there that wasn't achieved. I think if it had decided to go down a darker, more mature route then it could have gotten there. Instead it didn't seem to be able to decide if it wanted to be a mild, quirky comedy or a pensive drama about the life choices we make and the expectations forced upon us by the media. It had moments where it tried to get real serious, and they could have worked really well if only the movie had put in the groundwork beforehand and established itself as an actually decent exploration of those themes. You could see it trying to think about that kinda stuff but falling way short of actually going there. Sad to say it kind of made the whole thing feel like a bit of a failure.

Also, while Jack Black has proven himself more than capable in the past of being a fine and decent actor, in this film he played the lead all wrong. A bit too much of his cartoonish past was on display. As before, there were moments when you saw how the film should have been, but these were heavily outweighed by poor decisions.