(2001)
2.5
Derek Armstrong
The biggest problem with Joe Somebody is its miniscule supply of Joe Nobody. After a perfunctory 10 minutes of Tim Allen acting wimpy and vanilla, then getting smacked around by Patrick Warburton, he undergoes an instant makeover, suddenly on the fast track and beloved by everyone who used to ignore him. Joe Somebody quickly loses focus on Joe's training to fight an overgrown bully, and becomes just another Hollywood cautionary tale about getting too popular too fast, thereby shunning your identity. It would have been a lot more effective, though still implausible, as an adult version of Three O'Clock High, where the fight looms ominously, and the character's energies are spent on preparations that allow him to gradually gain confidence. Instead, Warburton's character goes missing for huge stretches of time, leaving him a fuzzy antagonist and wasting his screen presence. The focus becomes Joe's steady rise among his peers, which is predicated on the idea that he wants to get into a schoolyard brawl. (Included here is the de rigeur yuppie squash game, which has no purpose other than as a platform for winces and groin shots). Then there's the love story with a co-worker (Julie Bowen), which gets stalled by the fact that Joe is still hung up on his awful ex-wife (Kelly Lynch). Lost in all this is an early appearance by future Heroes star Hayden Panettiere, whose character warranted more screen time, and adding to the squareness quotient is a score by George S. Clinton (not the funk singer) that sounds straight out of the 1980s. But even had Joe Somebody been structured as a slow build toward redemption, that would still leave it no better than Jungle 2 Jungle, For Richer or Poorer, or any number of Allen vehicles as unmemorable as this film's titular schlub.
Joe Somebody on AllMovie
Joe Somebody (2001)
