The Tragedy of the Comedy

After watching Wedding Crashers last night, I've come to believe even more strongly in what I might like to call Spadinasaur's Rule of Movie Comedies -- the first half is always better than the second half. I'm also thinking here of Annie Hall, Office Space, Trading Places, His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story. The humour in the first half of these movies almost seems effortless, merely a matter of setting several characters loose into a world at which they are at odds. In the second half, however, there is generally a resolution of the conflict, which requires the kind of dramatic action and sentimentalism that the movie was smart to avoid in the first place.