Henson flounders in unnecessary ‘What Men Want’
You don’t have to be endowed with an otherworldly gift to know that “What Men Want” will do little to please the men or women watching it.
As a gender-flipped reboot banking solely on the strength of charismatic “Empire” star Taraji P. Henson, this latest iteration has few laughs and little magic to make it memorable.
“What Men Want” makes you thankful you’ve long forgotten its 2000 predecessor, “What Women Want,” and makes you shudder thinking about what other decomposing, negligible rom-coms studios will dig back up and present as new.
The film follows Ali (Henson), a successful sports agent who is consistently undermined, undervalued and boxed out by her male peers at work. She knows how to work athletes and their managers well but the office is a verifiable boy’s club with a “no girls allowed” sign posted squarely on the boardroom door.
When she’s rejected for a no-brainer promotion in lieu of a mediocre male peer, Ali recruits her cabal of resident funny, married friends (Wendi McLendon-Covey, Tamala Jones and Phoebe Robinson) for a night of carefree debauchery. But a reading from a quirky psychic named Sister (a breakout turn for singer Erykah Badu) leaves Ali with the ability to hear men’s thoughts.
Initially frightened by her newfound power, Ali is invigorated to outmaneuver and outsmart her colleagues while
‘What Men Want’
Adam Shankman. Bad
doing her best to keep secrets from a budding love interest, Will (Aldis Hodge).
Henson plays well with her devoted on-screen assistant (Josh Brener of “Silicon Valley”), and their hijinks spent spatting in Porsches and eyeing office weirdos (”Saturday Night Live” and Ariana Grande alumnus Pete Davidson) is one of the highlights of the film. His attempts to suss out what’s on her mind (because she definitely knows what’s on his) are some of the only consistently funny endeavors of the film.
The consistent motif of Ali’s mindreading powers is fun at first when she’s hooking up with a buff neighbor and playing poker with blockhead businessmen but blows up in an unsatisfactory wedding-set climax in which she predictably outs the groom as a philandering scrub.
For a movie that’s mined an all-star cast of athlete cameos and TV mainstays like Henson, Max Greenfield, Brener and Davidson, it does little to utilize de facto leading man Tracy Morgan, who plays the demanding and outrageous father of a basketball player Ali’s trying to sign. Morgan’s broad characterization is no different than what we’ve seen from him time and time again, but he’s kept in the periphery for most of the drama.
There’s simply too many subplots to care about any single one of them. Any real commentary on sexism is pushed aside for cheap gags; the blossoming romance between Ali and Will is unfulfilling since it’s built on misunderstandings and lies. For an R-rated film, it’s not nearly as daring or even as raunchy as it could be – especially when the crux of the plot is about what goes on in men’s minds.