Post by BIGFANBOY on Jun 17, 2009 5:05:44 GMT -5
YEAR ONE
Review by Gary Dean Murray
Jack Black has always been an actor most effective in small doses. The bigger roles he has been given, the more the shtick
just doesn't work. While I loved him in High Fidelity I liked his performance much less in just about everything else. As his star has risen, my affections for him have waned. His latest offers a strong pedigree with comic legend Harold Ramis behind the directing chair and Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (The Office) helping out with the script. The film is produced by Judd Apatow.
Seldom has so much talent been so thoroughly wasted...
Jack Black is Zed and Michael Cera is Oh; the former being a hunter and the later being a gatherer. After a few flub ups with the tribe and the eating of the forbidden fruit, Zed is banished and Oh decides to go with him. Oh fears that they will walk off the edge of the world, but soon find that the planet is just a little bigger than they expected.
Almost immediately, the two meet Cain (David Cross) and Abel (Paul Ruud). We all know what happens with these two brothers. After meeting the family and some lesbian and fart jokes, Cain travels with Zed and Oh to a local town. There they find that the group collective they left behind has been destroyed and the residents taken as slaves. The entire group has now been sold to a merchant. While traveling through the desert, the convoy is ambushed by the Romans. Zed and Oh are rescued from the desert by a band of wandering Jews led by Abraham (Hank Azaria). Abraham tries to convince our heroes about circumcision and tells them of the evil place of Sodom.
Can you guess where they are going next?
In Sodom, our leads become Roman guards, living the high life. But they do not understand the virgin sacrifices pushed by the High Priest (Oliver Platt). The rest of Year One is about the different adventures in the doomed city, which includes the famous Tower. Think of it as a Hope/Crosby Road film, but without any fun.
This film has so many problems, all of them stemming from Harold Ramis. This former funny man is lost in this rip-off cross between Life of Brian and Cave Man, both of which are much better films. It is a comedy where I only laughed maybe two times in ninety minutes. Though technically this is a well-crafted little flick, with great costumes and sets, the problem falls on the most basic flaw of every lost cinema project. The script just isn't funny. One would think that the writer of Stripes and Animal House working with two writers from The Office would find something amusing somewhere in this lost time period.
If feels like Jack Black was just told 'Do something funny' with the camera rolling. He is so over the top that he shoots past any semblance of constraint. Ramis seems to have given up on directing the actor, just letting him chew on every scene he's in. It is painful to watch him romp around like a lunatic. He tries to be a John Belushi, another actor better in smaller roles.
Michael Cera just looks embarrassed in a role that is not comical. With his silly hair pieces, it seems almost as if he wants to hide behind his costumes. There is this pained expression on his puss as if he were the only person who realizes that this stuff really isn't working.
Oliver Platt, David Cross and Hank Azaria are just lost, trying to revive something humorous in this corpse script. But silly wigs, beards and clothes do not make grand performances. All three have turned out much better work, they just look like they trusted this comic writer/director not realizing that his biggest successes were decades ago.
The film is cripplingly painful, never funny. It is not even funny in a bad way... so bad it's good. Being a summer blockbuster, Year One is an abject failure.
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