With the actors attached to this remake, Arthur does have a ton of moments of comedic magic, but this is not enough to completely overcompensate for the unsurprisingly overdone storyline.

The story follows Arthur, a bajillionaire who was born into money and now has no inclination to make his own.  Living large as a playboy and partier, he has become an embarrassment to his mother as he frivolously tosses around her riches, forcing her to the point that she must give Arthur an ultimatum to get him into shape.  The choice is this: either Arthur can marry the more responsible Susan, who will give the stockholders a feeling of stability that cannot be provided with Arthur in charge of the company, or he can lose his ties to the family fortune, leaving him with nothing.  What seems to be an easy decision for a character such as this is made slightly more problematic when he meets the possible girl of his dreams.

The unoriginal storyline of this triangle between love and greed is often featured in romantic comedies, and Arthur is drenched in it.  That’s right, no matter what the previews show you this is a cookie cutter rom-com at best.  Sigh…  Luckily enough the cast is far less forgettable than the story, with Russell Brand playing the lead.  Without a script in hand there is no way for me to tell how much of the dialog is scripted and how much is adlibbed, but whatever the case may be Brand is as hilarious as ever, delivering line after line of comedy gold.  Even a few of the ridiculously offensive jokes are pure entertainment coming from him, giving ample opportunities for you to smile while shaking your head as you would at a misbehaving child, unable to discipline the inappropriate behavior.  Besides, we don’t have to when someone like Helen Mirren is there to do so.  As Arthur’s nanny Hobson, Mirren shows her subdued comedic timing in her numerous endearing scenes with Brand, keeping Arthur’s character from being far too annoying in his frivolity because of his genuine love for this mother figure.

As much as I would have loved to see more of these two on screen together the love triangle has to fit in somewhere, and unfortunately for the female romantic leads they are given the short end of the stick when compared to Mirren’s stronger character.  Jennifer Garner plays Susan and definitely creates a woman who Arthur obviously is right in not wanting to be tied down to her, but where she is pretty shallow in her career oriented drive Arthur’s love interest is pretty poorly created as well.  Greta Gerwig plays Naomi, and though I felt Gerwig plays the character pretty monotonously for the majority of the film (only getting to show more range later on) a large percentage of my problems with her are in the character itself.  Naomi is a fun and light-spirited woman with a love of life so it is easy to understand why she would be drawn to Arthur, but eventually I couldn’t help but turn against her because of her willingness to continue the relationship.  I don’t believe that her motives are the same as Susan’s incentive towards money and power, but unless she has a fetish for men behaving as children I cannot understand why on Earth she would be willing to stick around for a man who is drunk for at least 95% of the film (I don’t care how functioning he is).

With these large problems with the rom-com aspects of the film, Arthur is definitely held back from being something truly great.  None-the-less, it is still entertaining thanks to some great performances by Mirren and Brand that keep the laughs going even as the story loses the attention of the audience.

Final Grade: C+