Movie Review: Psych: The Movie (2017)
I never did get around to seeing this from start to finish until the debut of NBC’s Peacock app. Aside from the sound being off by about a second or so for the entire thing (not sure if it was an issue with the app or my WiFi), I really enjoyed it.
I think on the whole, were it an episode of the show, it’d be pretty average, or maybe even a bit below. But if you think of this as a season 8 episode, or compare it to anything after season 5, when the show went downhill a bit, it’s an above average episode.
I appreciate that the movie pays attention to the continuity of the last season, with Shawn, Gus, Chief Vick, and Juliet O’Hara all in San Francisco. Though this does mean that there’s not much Lassiter unfortunately (he pops up in a face time call, and that’s it).
Gus is barely working with Shawn, who’s struggling to get cases (both Juliet and Gus think it’s because his company name, Psychphrancisco, is dumb and doesn’t give any indication of what his business is). I also like that Shawn intentionally models his Chinatown store to look just like the Chinese store in Gremlins.
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that this movie is — to at least a certain extent — treading water, doing what we’ve seen already, and relying on nostalgia. A few guest stars from the show appear as different characters. Julianna Guill from “Shawn, Interrupted” shows up as the assistant coroner. That one guy whose name I can’t remember who’s in a few episodes (including the remake episode of course) and directed or maybe wrote a number of episodes, shows up as Gus’s boss.
And other guest stars show up as their original roles. Ralph Macchio appears for one scene as Nick Conforth, and Jimmi Simpson is back as Mary Lightly, albeit in a dream, because he’s dead. This dream scene was easily my least favorite scene in the movie, as it’s really just nonsense.
Mena Suvari also shows up as Allison Cowley, Mr. Yin’s protege. She’s out of prison apparently, and she’s the ultimate villain here, though we’re initially led to believe it’s Zachary Levi as the Bowie-obsessed Thin White Duke.
As far as new characters go (there aren’t too many), Levi’s great fun. There’s a running joke about how his accent sounds nothing like Bowie, but he’s pretty good as that sort of gentleman criminal.
Where this movie shines, of course, is the interactions between Gus and Shawn. They still have their stolen driving school car, which leads to some great comedy. There are a gew “Gus, don’t be” gags, which are always great.
And my favorite scene, and one of the goofier ones, is when the movie might easily have gotten serious. When Allison is revealed as the main villain, she’s holding Shawn, Gus, Juliet, Chief Vick, Woody (yes, he’s back), and Henry hostage at Alcatraz. Well really she’s holding Chief Vick’s teenage daughter, and challenging them all to find and free her. But this is a masterclass in how to make a bad guy monologue very funny.
Mena Suvari treats her role seriously enough, and the writing of her actual speech isn’t too comedic. There’s like one joke she makes about this kind of bad guy trope, but between her interrupting it every now and then to continue to shoot the Thin White Duke, Woody claiming he can’t hear anything she’s saying, Gus insisting that he’s in the mood for cheese claws, and Shawn replying that he could never eat cheese in claw form, it’s a really, really funny scene.
If you’re a fan of the series, then you can’t miss this. It’s not fantastic or anything, but it’s good as a followup to the series, and it does a lot to give you what you’ve been missing.
Rating: 7/10
