"Year One" Movie Review
By Christian Toto www.whatwouldtotowatch.com
Just because the setting of director Harold Ramis’ new comedy is paleolithic doesn’t mean the gags have to be dated.
“Year One,” which teams Jack Black with Michael Cera as a pair of Neanderthal losers, seems dug up from a 1980s time capsule. The bulk of the humor here smells moldy, as if the gags came from a pitch meeting made during the heyday of “SCTV,” not “The Daily Show” and “The Office.”
Some scenes hearken back to an even earlier comic age. It’s a shock that neither of the leads cries, “Hey, Abbott!” at the top of his lungs.
The film follows Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera), two Neanderthals who can’t master the only jobs available to them - hunting and gathering.
So their tribe cuts them loose, forcing them to fend for themselves in a very strange land.
They bump into a bevy of characters who, like Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd), come straight from the Old Testament.
“Year One” begins with a can’t miss hook. What if modern-day attitudes were fused onto characters living at the dawn of mankind? Ramis’ film manages a few gentle jabs at organized religion without suffering from “Religulous”-style condescension.
Yet the script lets Black and Cera down time and again, forcing them to mug and ad lib until something resembling comedy takes shape. It isn’t pretty, especially during several sequences which set up something humorous but just leave the moment alone to wither and die.
The leads make for a potentially lethal comic tag team. Black remains Black to the core, but Cera’s sweetness cuts the “School of Rock” star’s bluster down to size.
“Year One” feels way out of step with modern comic mores. Today’s young audiences likely won’t howl over jokes about how badly Jewish people perform at sports, and when the movie isn’t mimicking the tired comic tropes of the ’80s it turns Black and Cera into a modern day Abbott & Costello.
Worst of all, “Year One” traffics in sexual and excretory humor, a neon sign declaring the script’s limited resources.
But for every three jokes which fizzle there’s at least one that draws a smirk, and the movie’s set design is surprisingly first rate. So, too, is the soundtrack, which thunders with the sort of self-important notes that help sharpen the modest comic moments.
“Year One” will make audiences feel as if they were clubbed over the head with outdated comedy shtick.
Just because the setting of director Harold Ramis’ new comedy is paleolithic doesn’t mean the gags have to be dated.
“Year One,” which teams Jack Black with Michael Cera as a pair of Neanderthal losers, seems dug up from a 1980s time capsule. The bulk of the humor here smells moldy, as if the gags came from a pitch meeting made during the heyday of “SCTV,” not “The Daily Show” and “The Office.”
Some scenes hearken back to an even earlier comic age. It’s a shock that neither of the leads cries, “Hey, Abbott!” at the top of his lungs.
The film follows Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera), two Neanderthals who can’t master the only jobs available to them - hunting and gathering.
So their tribe cuts them loose, forcing them to fend for themselves in a very strange land.
They bump into a bevy of characters who, like Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd), come straight from the Old Testament.
“Year One” begins with a can’t miss hook. What if modern-day attitudes were fused onto characters living at the dawn of mankind? Ramis’ film manages a few gentle jabs at organized religion without suffering from “Religulous”-style condescension.
Yet the script lets Black and Cera down time and again, forcing them to mug and ad lib until something resembling comedy takes shape. It isn’t pretty, especially during several sequences which set up something humorous but just leave the moment alone to wither and die.
The leads make for a potentially lethal comic tag team. Black remains Black to the core, but Cera’s sweetness cuts the “School of Rock” star’s bluster down to size.
“Year One” feels way out of step with modern comic mores. Today’s young audiences likely won’t howl over jokes about how badly Jewish people perform at sports, and when the movie isn’t mimicking the tired comic tropes of the ’80s it turns Black and Cera into a modern day Abbott & Costello.
Worst of all, “Year One” traffics in sexual and excretory humor, a neon sign declaring the script’s limited resources.
But for every three jokes which fizzle there’s at least one that draws a smirk, and the movie’s set design is surprisingly first rate. So, too, is the soundtrack, which thunders with the sort of self-important notes that help sharpen the modest comic moments.
“Year One” will make audiences feel as if they were clubbed over the head with outdated comedy shtick.
posted by Ron Futrell at
7:37 PM
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