9.30.2009

Walk him and pitch to the Rhino.....

Director Harold Ramis's Year One is one astonishing movie.

I wouldn't have thought it possible to put Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross, and Hank Azaria in a movie and not generate a single moment of genuine humour. Not one. It's incomprehensible. If you were to train a camera randomly on any one of these guys for 5 minutes, I guarantee you'd get at least a couple of impromptu chuckles, even if they were asleep. It simply boggles the mind how anyone could write a script that entirely neuters the natural comedic talents of some pretty funny dudes, and yet here it is – Year One.

I watched the whole thing, something I rarely do if by about the ½ hour point I haven't found at least a tiny nugget of worth to hold on to. It became a challenge of sorts, I began egging on Ramis to do the impossible – make none of these guys do or say anything that made me laugh for an hour and a half.

He won.

Year One is not quite as funny as Schindler's List but significantly more humourous than Stalingrad, so that's something. I would place it somewhere between Grave of the Fireflies and Lilja 4-Ever in terms of laughs and Patch Adams and The Wayan Bros' Little Man on a quality scale.

Year one is the worst film I've seen this year, a bland, shit-eating snoozefest of punchlines sans the all-important setup part. It's PG-13 rating is confusing given the R-rated material for 7 year-old content. I guess they split the difference.

Judd Apetow co-produced.

Quelle surprise.

Sporgey.

2 comments:

Britarded said...

There it is "nugget".

the coelacanth said...

as you say, quelle surprise. this looks absolutely horrid. thank you for diving on the grenade and saving us all an hour and a half of our lives that you'll never get back.