Mitch Macro's Netflix Pick-of-the-Week: The Giant Mechanical Man

So while I hesitate to recommend The Giant Mechanical Man, it definitely wasn’t bad. It’s a simple, common story of two people who are “different” and fall in love. Unfortunately, the film feels dry because it just doesn’t do anything new. Tim (Chris Messina), a street performer who dresses up like a giant mechanical man, is dumped by his girlfriend because he isn’t “successful.” Janice (Jenna Fischer) works odd jobs through a temp agency and is often fired for not being engaged or focused. One day Jenna sees Tim dressed as a mechanical man and tosses some change into the hat. She watches Tim preform, much to her delight, but they don’t speak. When Janice is evicted from her apartment, she moves in with her very traditional sister, Jill (Malin Akerman), and her husband, Brian (Rich Sommer), both of whom pressure her to date their author friend, Doug (Topher Grace). Even though Jill keeps trying to push Janice and Doug together, in the end Janice and Tim—the two “misfits”—fall for each other. 

It’s an unoriginal story, and unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot to make this film better than others. It felt similar to Drinking Buddies, but it was neither as funny nor did it have the acting talent to keep up. First, this movie wasn’t as funny as it could (or should) have been, but it also didn’t have the drama that would fill the void. There were plenty of moments where the film could’ve taken a new direction but instead it sort of just goes along as expected. Topher Grace’s character was very clearly written to be the brunt of the jokes and was amazingly unfunny. He was an author of a book about having “Winning Conversations” yet he was completely uninteresting to listen to. If that was the whole point of the joke, then it’s exceedingly lazy.

Sticking with Topher Grace a moment longer, the acting definitely needed a boost. Topher Grace, Jenna Fischer and Chris Messina often felt like they were acting. The lines were delivered very intentionally and unbelievably. That being said, Malin Akerman and Rich Sommer both gave very convincing performances. As the sister who has it together and constantly offers unsolicited advice, Malin Akerman was great, and if you watch Mad Men I think you’ll agree that Rich Sommer was a great choice for a husband with a marginally famous author friend.

While it sounds mostly bad, I think a more appropriate description of the film is overwhelmingly average. It didn’t do anything very well, but it didn’t do anything specifically bad. What really turned me off was how predictable and cliché the film felt. It may be a byproduct of the poor acting, but the story just felt like it was following a road map. The ‘non-traditional professional and personal success’ theme was so obvious and dull that it almost wasn’t worth listening to anything the film had to say about it. I can envision someone liking this film a lot, but it was just too unoriginal for me.

Grade: C+
Length: 94 minutes