Year One = Fail

Okay, usually I review films the day after I see them, unless it's completely awesome or it just fails horribly. Year One is a case of the latter. After seeing The Hangover last night, I was sorely disappointed in this film. I'm not certain where to begin in this review, but I guess I'll start with casting. I'm a fan of Jack Black, usually an underrated actor in my opinion, but in this film he's just awful, then of course there's Michael Cera, an actor who I think has a very very limited range of characters. He's only able to play the awkward, shy, guy who is unable to win the girl which, while endearing in films like Juno and Nick & Nora, just gets annoying. The whole film I wanted to scream at him to man up and do something, take a stance, punch the heinously disgusting high priest in the face instead of slathering him with oil. Which brings me to the writing, it just wasn't very memorable, I chuckled at parts, but no real laugh out loud, side-hurting laughter. The jokes were okay, but for the most part it was making fun of biblical figures and not much else. Probably one of the most confusing parts of the movie was the progression between the ages with only the passage of a few weeks. Really the plot was weak, two guys get kicked out of their home and on a journey to find and redeem themselves, big woop it's been used to many times, they find out the world is much bigger than they imagined and in their first encounter with the outside world, they see Cain murder Abel. Up to this point the movie is okay, not great but okay, some laughs and one horribly awful shit-eating moment. Then of course we meet Noah and Cain has an adolescent lashout over dinner when asked about Abel, despite the fact that he's got to be in his mid to late twenties, not cool. From there it just kind of slowly goes downhill, we meet Abraham as he's about to sacrifice Isaac, Jack Black claims to be an agent of God to save him, there's a few circumcision jokes, some Sodom/Las Vegas jokes, and then just a whole bunch of hey we're in Sodom, we have power, we're slaves again, hey we have power again, nope we don't, hey look at that Michael Cera got the girl, and then of course, wait what that's the end? Not a "I really wanted more" that's the end, but more of a "I'm not quite sure what the hell just happened in the last hour and a half. There's a lot of of comedy talent in this film, just not much of it actually makes it out, then of course there's two scenes I wanted to just puke, actually started gagging at one point, and a whole lot of hey we're in sodom so we have to make veiled gay jokes. I say if you really want to see this film, rent it, or better yet borrow it from someone else who rents it. It's just a bad film, it had potential, definitely had talented actors, but it fell flat. Biggest disappointment is Michael Cera, seriously the guy just needs to get some different roles and stop mumbling! Overall, if you skip this film, you aren't missing much of anything.

until next time, I wonder what would happen if you mixed chocolate, pineapple, graham crackers, oranges, strawberries and bananas, for some reason it sounds delicious...