Product Description

WHEN ONE OF THEM BECOMES MINDBLOWINGLY, QUITE LITERALLY STINKING RICH BY SELLING AN INVENTION, A PAIR OF LIFE-LONG BEST FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS (THEY EVEN WORK AT THE SAME COMPANY) FINDS THEIR BOND BREAKING AS THE OTHER GUY START TO GO CRAZY ... WITH ENVY.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14498 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2004-09-28
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.com
Envy is a funny movie, but it's more funny peculiar than funny ha-ha, so enjoyment is purely a matter of personal taste. When Nick (Jack Black) invents an aerosol spray that makes dog-poop disappear (think of the boon to society!), he reaps a fortune overnight and sends his friend, co-worker and neighbor Tim (Ben Stiller) into a tailspin of simmering envy, since he had no faith in Nick's get-rich-quick scheme and declined his offer of 50-50 partnership. What makes this potentially raucous plot peculiar is that it sets up the situation and proceeds to ignore its most comedic implications, opting instead for a sub-plot involving bows, arrows, a dead horse, and an eccentric vagrant (Christopher Walken, offering reliable comic relief) who coaches Tim on the joys of neighborly blackmail. All the while, Envy suffers a comedic identity crisis, giving Black and Stiller a few good laughs (along with their on-screen wives, played by Rachel Weisz and Saturday Night Live's Amy Poehler) while director Barry Levinson struggles to reach a quirky balance of morality play and blue-collar farce. He never quite gets there. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Cool movie if you like poop
The funniest parts of this movie come in the first couple of scenes with Tim (Ben Stiller) and Nick (Jack Black)going to and from work. The dialogue between them just cracked me up about the tasting of each others pants and "Do you ever just watch your hand?" Funniest parts of the whole movie. Soon thereafter, I realized the engine that was to drive the comedy in this movie was centered around making poop disappear, I knew this film was in trouble.
After the age of 8 or 9 I didn't find anything about poop to be that funny anymore. Unfortunately with the screenwriter of this movie, that wasn't the case. I think the whole "Envy" story could've been easily driven by somthing else. There's funnier things out there than poop.
As far as the acting goes, Ben Stiller and Jack Black did all they could for this movie. Their preformances were fine, so no fault on thier part(except for the fact that they agreed to do this movie). Same goes for Christopher Walken.
To go along with this bad movie is a crappy (no pun intended) DVD. There's a scene index of Black's funniest moments in the movie. Who cares? I just watched it. If I really cared enough about it to see the funniest moments again, I'd torture myself by watching it again. There's also a photo gallery (we all know that's boring) and cast and crew bios. And some production notes. I would just rather them not have any special features so I don't have to waste my time.
In closing, this movie is just a result of a bad and ridiculous idea. Does Hollywood really think we'd find this funny?

I loved the movie, but I guess i'm strange
I rented this movie one day without having known a single thing about the movie. I read no reviews and all I knew about the movie is who directed it. I like the director's films and the two people in it.

I personally enjoyed the movie and found it quite funny. Even laugh out loud funny. Yes, you read that right. I'm not an idiot and like all kinds of movies and am pretty picky. I have to admit I might have a weird sense of humour.

Anyway, this isn't much of a review. I saw the movie and liked it so much that I immediately rewatched it! That night I checked rotten tomatoes (Review site) and was shocked to find that the movie was totally rotten! I felt a little embarrassed that I liked the movie that much, but who cares!

All my friends hate the movie and think it's garbage. Probably 1/10 people would actually like the movie. Possibly. I just know that I loaned the movie to my mother and she loved it as well! No, we are not a family of idiots as you may be thinking! We also don't smoke drugs.

This is one of those movies I love that everyone else in the world seems to hate. I'm sure you'd had that happen before.

Not as good as it should be
I read the bad reviews before going to see this movie. I refused to belive it when they said that there were no laughs to be found within the first half hour. They were right. The theatre I saw it in was stone cold silent for that time-seriously!! No one was laughing, not even me.

This goes to show how vastly underused the cast of this movie was, especially with solid actors like Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Christopher Walken, Rachel Weisz and SNL's Amy Poehler, who are all usually hilarious! That being said, Envy is a cute comedy that has some minor laughs and even a few good laughs. Unfortunately, the good laughs are a little too few and far between to make this a great movie. It is still watchable, though.

Also, in several scenes, the boom mikes are very plainly in view. I dont' just mean the tops either, I mean the entire mikes! Maybe the studio just didnt' care. We'll see if the DVD rectifies this.

Watch this movie if you must, but keep your expectations way low.