Ashley Tisdale leads a group of teenagers who must band together to protect their Maine vacation home from some pesky houseguests: a fleet of aliens holed up on the top floor of the house. The adventure comedy, which was shot in Auckland, New Zealand, also stars Robert Hoffman, Carter Jenkins, Gillian Vigman, Doris Roberts and “Saturday Night Live” alums Tim Meadows and Kevin Nealon.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:46 am
The script was very strong when dealing with character-driven scenes. But the setups for those scenes were usually predictable. There were a couple of setups that weren’t predictable because they were simply incredible. The result is that In Good Company comprises solid scenes driven by character interaction, with the scenes being connected by a fairly generic storyline. I do give the script credit for not taking the obvious way out at the end. Okay, it’s not a bad story line, but it sure could have been a bit more creative.
As a side note: I doubt that many will notice it because it’s done so subtly, but the cinematography really helps some of the scenes hold together. Where the standard approach would be to do quick cuts between the actors during a dialogue, In Good Company tends to use a shallow depth of field and to shift the focus from one speaker to another. This is particularly effective in the boardroom scenes, where the camera shoots diagonally down the conference room table. I hope that the focus puller was well-paid for this film.