the last scene when he's in bed with his wife...i just sat there and thought so he really thought this was him giving no fukks....
I tried watching it. quick review:
It does give off I’m a grown little man vibes in the beginning, it’s more grounded than his recent specials, but once you get past that you realize you are in for the same shyt. About 1/4 into it he starts speaking about his kids and I immediately lose interest.
He had so many ways he could’ve transitioned into something much more deep, but bailed every time and kept it very surface level. At this moment I realized it’s not going to get better than this.
he kept mentioning he’s getting older but never dives into how his perceptions of the world changed. He did briefly in the beginning, but he once again bails. I was 25-30 min in before I started skipping around to see if he atleast differentiated, but nope and at that point i shut it off.
If you’re going into it thinking the title means anything, you are wrong. It’s merely just a title. you’re getting the same ol kev. If you’re expecting something else you will be hugely disappointed.
Thanks for the heads up. No need to watch this now.
I think we're spoiled because we're living in an era where there are a handful of truly great and active comedians (Chappelle, Rock, Burr etc.) but also more comedians than ever.
I don't even consider Kevin on the level of someone like Roy Wood Jr. or Godfrey.
He's never been deep or even that intelligent. He's just incredibly charismatic. That's great for movies, but not enough for stand-up.
I'll disagree a lil bit. His early stuff was really good. He was a naturally gifted stand up. The thing is now is about the time he'd be hitting his prime in stand up. A lot of the greats use their own drama and experiences or like someone here said, talk about their worldview and all that. And standup takes work. These guys don't just tour and record a special based off some jokes they wrote. They usually work out new material for months or even a year or more before they're comfortable having a solid 40 mns worth of stuff to really tour and do specials with. That's why even a cat as high level as Chappelle is always (before the pandemic) popping up in clubs and doing smaller tours without cameras. They're putting that work in writing, editing, pacing, etc.
Kevin Hart gave all that up to be a movie star/hustler. And it's wildly profitable and I don't begrudge him any of it. But he's no longer putting the grind in to be a great stand up comic. Its a hustle now. He'll sell tickets and get Netflix money based on his name and fame and enough people will laugh just off the base of his charisma and his team writing solid, if uninteresting material that he'll eat good. And that's fine. Chappelle is really the only comedian I can think of that got big doing TV/Movie stuff and still brought the heat in stand up and honestly that's largely because he walked away from the other stuff and focused on stand up and always considered himself a stand up first.
when I was a kid I used to think some of the short bits on the show were ok. Tried to watch his special that came out a year or two back and turned it off like 10-15 mns in. Never appealed to me I guess@Verbal Kint what are your thoughts on Seinfeld as a stand up?
The hunger isn't there anymore.
Yeah its a wrapThe hunger isn't there anymore.
I thought this may be the case. I haven't watched this one yet but he is sticking to Comedy because it's what made him but it seems like he has nothing new or funny to add as his life is comfortable now. He is nice guy keV, he has to many people to keep happy to really let loose. Dave is just incredible with it still. Dave has a crowd with say 25-30% white women and he will say some flagrant shyt about White bytches and they love it because they know where he is coming from. Kevin Hart is Hollywood for real and that's not a bad thing because it's what he wanted and his come up has been great but he has lost his spark for Stand up imo.
His early stuff really had me laughing hard but now it's generic.
His blatant shilling for McDonald's and Walmart don't help either. Like you said it's not a bad thing he's gone full corporate, it's what he worked for...but there's an inevitable trade-off with that that he clearly wasn't ready for. Now he's boxed in to a space where he can't talk about legit social issues, and that's the bread and butter of any comic whether you aspire to be great at it or not. Kev might as well just go the Berry Gordy route and just manage artists and contracts.
Chappelle is beholden to no one so he can do pretty much whatever he wants.