Year One Review

Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 06.22.2009

Harold Ramis should be ashamed of himself.

"Year One" Review

Jack Black- Zed
Michael Cera- Oh
David Cross- Cain
Oliver Platt- High Priest
Hank Azaria- Abraham
Juno Temple- Eema
Olivia Wilde- Princess Inanna
June Diane Raphael- Maya
Vinnie Jones- Sargon
Xander Berkeley- King
Mathew Willig- Marlak
Harold Ramis- Adam
Bill Hader- Shaman
Eden Riegel- Lilith
Christopher Mintz-Plasse- Isaac
Kyle Gass- Zaftig the Eunuch

Directed by Harold Ramis

Screenplay by Harold Ramis, Gene Stupnitsky, and Lee Eisenberg, based on a story by Harold Ramis
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language and comic violence

Runtime- 97 minutes
Website: http://www.yearone-movie.com/



"Year One," directed and co-written by the usually great Harold Ramis, isn't very good. It's a comedy that, despite the obvious best effort from everyone involved, just doesn't work. At best, it works some of the time, but even then when it seems like it's working it doesn't seem like it's working as well as it should. It almost seems like, in its present form, it's a second or third draft awaiting more revisions and editing.

I mean, this can't possibly be the movie that the man who gave us "Caddyshack," "National Lampoon's Vacation," and "Groundhog Day" really wanted to make, can it?

The flick stars Jack Black and Michael Cera as Zed and Oh, members of a tribe of hunters and gatherers (Zed is a hunter, Oh is a gatherer) who end up banished from the tribe after Zed is caught eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge, which apparently is a big no-no. Oh leaves the tribe after Zed accidentally burns some of the village down, completely destroying his house in the process. With nowhere to go, Zed and Oh decide to just walk around and figure out what it is they want to do. Zed, with his newly acquired knowledge, wants to prove to the world (well, to Oh mostly) that the world is not flat, and Oh wants to find a way to go back to the tribe and get it on with Eema (Juno Temple), a pretty young woman that he never got a chance to "lay with." They eventually run into Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd), a situation that eventually leads to Zed and Oh finding out that their tribe has been captured and enslaved by the Romans (the tribe is actually enslaved first by a group of people led by Marshall Manesh, who you may recognize from his recurring role on "How I Met Your Mother" as Ranjit the cab and limo driver), which then leads to Zed and Oh trying to rescue their tribe from the city of Soddom, where the Romans rule. That's the basic plot as far as I can tell.

Now, from all of that, it sounds like there's quite a bit going on here. But there isn't. There's no dramatic thrust to the story. There's nothing for anyone to gain, especially Zed and Oh, even when it seems as though they have a sudden purpose, to find and rescue their former tribe. Zed and Oh just wander around, meeting people and essentially stumbling into situations because that's what the script says has to happen. The movie picks up a bit when Zed and Oh get to Soddom and have to figure out how to get their tribe out of the walled city all by themselves. While there they interact with various characters like the King (Xander Berkeley), Princess Inanna (Olivia Wilde), Sargon the Roman soldier (Vinnie Jones), the flaming homosexual town High Priest (Oliver Platt), and Zaftig the Eunuch (Kyle Gass), among others. The jokes are hit and miss here, too, but less hit and miss than earlier, and we get a better sense of motivation from Zed and Oh. We suddenly see what's at stake. It's too late to save the movie but it's much more interesting than everything that happened before.

Another of the flick's other big problems is its over reliance on David Cross' Cain character. Cross is usually quite funny, but aside from his bit with Paul Rudd, Cross is just awful here. He keeps showing up again and again, essentially acting as the flick's main villain, always finding new ways to screw over Zed and Oh. And he isn't funny. At all. He's grating, annoying, even boring at times. It probably would have been better if Cross ended up with the same amount of screen time as Hank Azaria, who plays Abraham. Abraham is all about circumcising people, never shutting up about how great it is for a man to "lose the tip of his penis." Abraham shows up a few times, yes, but he's never around for long, and his ongoing penis slicing joke is actually funny.

And then there's Black and Cera as the leads. They do an okay job and have a nice enough chemistry, but they're allowed (forced may be a better word) to go on and on and on talking and saying nothing. They just have too many jokes to tell. Black does his usual Jack Black schtick, which is funny mostly towards the end. Cera does his usual Michael Cera bit where he acts like a wimpy nerd and talks softly. If there were about a third less of both of them the movie would probably flow better.

This flick will likely appear in some kind of "unedited" or "unrated" form when it hits DVD, which often means that the movie will have a longer running time. I personally hope that Ramis instead re-edits the movie and adds some music to it. Music would probably help the movie's flow and make it go faster. This movie doesn't need longer or extended scenes, it doesn't need to go on for any longer than its current time. It really needs less of itself. It needs to play more.

Now, lots of people have already compared this movie to last year's Mike Myers disaster "The Love Guru", which is a bit unfair. Box office wise I wouldn't be surprised if "Year One" makes the same kind of money, but "Year One" is not as bad as "The Love Guru." "Year One" is its own kind of badness, a better kind of badness. It's still bad, just not as much. You will laugh a few times while watching "Year One."

Probably.

As for Harold Ramis, I hope that this is just a career aberration for him, a mistake that happens to gifted directors from time to time (not every movie can be a classic or, well, good). I hope that this is not a harbinger of things to come. Russell Zitsky, you can do so much better.

I'd advise everyone to avoid "Year One," at least in a movie theatre setting. It's not worth making the effort to go. But if you just have to go, don't say no one warned you. You've all been warned.

So what do we have here? A vast wooded area, a big spider web, gratuitous big guys hunting a boar, gratuitous Jack Black, gratuitous Horatio Sanz, spear to the back, spear breaking, gratuitous Michael Cera, gratuitous Michael Cera picking berries, fat guy belly dancing, gratuitous women with armpit hair, a boar's head, double spear massaging, gratuitous forbidden fruit eating, snake attack, gratuitous tribal dancing, hand smelling, multiple clubs to the head, gratuitous Bill Hader, a big ass fire, a cougar attack, a piece of meat that looks like a vagina, gratuitous poop eating, gratuitous David Cross, gratuitous Paul Rudd, face punching, head crushing, barfing, gratuitous Harold Ramis, a lesbian, farting, a "high speed" oxen cart chase, lightning strike to the head, gratuitous Marshall Menesh, gratuitous Vinnie Jones, a severed head, gratuitous McLovin, gratuitous Hank Azaria, jokes about Jews, talking about Israel, nipple twisting, potential sodomy, meat on a stick, gratuitous hot chick slowly eating a banana, shield to the face, a guy that kin d of looks like Adrien Brody, gratuitous Oliver Platt, gratuitous Oliver Platt "reading" sheep intestines, gratuitous Olivia Wilde, a virgin sacrifice, gratuitous Kyle Gass, giant hairy man boobs, stone penis breaking, gratuitous Michael Cera urinating on his own face while hanging upside down, gratuitous attempted stoning, testicle throwing, attempted reverse Kim Richards, ass kicking Jews, people on fire, and a happy ending.

Best lines: "I'm pretty sure he had that when he left the village," "Who stands in front of a boar during a hunt?," "Why does everyone always have to take a crap behind my hut?," "I'm dying a virgin," "You fucked the pooch on this one," "Well, you're a pile of sticks and dung!," "Rule number one, show no fear. You're showing fear," "Oh, my mistake, this is deer poop," "What have I continued to do?," "What are these big round things for? They're wheels numbskulls," "Well, let's be honest, Lilith is a lying bitch," "Your head's smoking," "Run like a cougar is chasing you!," "I think I have sand in my ass. There's no way to know for sure," "Which of the two cities has the most whores?," "I'll be right back to cut your penises," "Do you love hanging out with this little girl?," "Wow. Those doors are enormous," "Let go of his titty," "She's really making that banana last," "What transpires within the confines of the walls of Sodom stays within the confines of the walls of Sodom," "Uh, I never got a sword. I just got the holder," "You know what the bad part of Sodom is? The Sodomy," "If we never see you again it's not because we're ignoring you," "Why all of the genital mutilations?," "Eww. Is that chest hair? Not all of it," "What's the point of being God if you have to keep going out for things?," "You would believe in God if you were with a woman," "Did he just hurl his own ball at him? Spectacular," "That doesn't count. He threw a testicle," "You know, the mud's really good for your skin," "Let's cut some foreskins!," "Should I take off my undercloth?," and "Oh, I want you to have babies with my sister."

The 411: "Year One" is a bad, bad movie. It doesn't quite reach the level of total disaster but it comes dang close. There's just too much irrelevant, unfunny stuff going on. The flick needs some major cutting, major editing, major reworking. I'd like to think that this is really just a second draft and that director Harold Ramis can do better. He's done great work in the past. This flick, though, is a career low. A major career low. Don't make an effort to see it.

Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]