Movie Review: Year One (2009)
Devoid of laughter, this one misses the mark
Photo: Columbia Pictures
Year One seems to prove that occasionally there is an actual line between success and failure with no in-between, and this is a film that could have just as easily fallen onto the side of success as it did onto the side of failure. Make no mistake about it, Year One is an absolute dud of a film. This one is dead on arrival and hardly makes an attempt to resuscitate itself. While there are a couple of snicker-worthy moments, the majority of this film falls flat on its face.
The cast includes Jack Black, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Oliver Platt, David Cross, Vinnie Jones, Juno Temple, Olivia Wilde, Paul Rudd, Hank Azaria, Xander Berkley, Horatio Sanz, Harold Ramis, Kyle Gass, Bill Hader and June Diane Raphael. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"Year One" is a Columbia Pictures release, directed by Harold Ramis and is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language and comic violence.
Scenes are framed lazily and jokes are strung out so long they go from mildly humorous to intensely annoying. The introduction of David Cross and Paul Rudd as Cain and Abel was a stroke of genius casting, but the scene feels like a "Saturday Night Live" skit in which the two actors were asked to improvise until they got it right… They never did. As Zed and Oh journey further outside their forest dwellings they find themselves meeting more and more historical figures in something of a Bible's greatest hits using the book of Genesis as its muse even though this is hardly operating as any kind of dedicated storytelling.
The story leads Zed and Oh to Sodom and along the way they encounter Abraham (Hank Azaria) and Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), have to deal with the introduction of circumcision and the sacrificing of virgins all while going through so many wardrobe changes you wonder why no one was around to do their hair — a concept that could have actually benefit this stinker.
While originally banished from their tribe as a result of Zed's feasting on the fruit from the forbidden tree, their goal becomes rescuing the loves of their lives — Maya (June Diane Raphael) and Eema (Juno Temple) — who have been captured by the Romans led by Sargon (Vinnie Jones) and taken to Sodom to work as slaves for Princess Inanna (Olivia Wilde).
The name dropping doesn't stop there as Oliver Platt plays a furried, over-sized high priest, but this is just one example of the cheap humor this film basks in, making no attempts to develop a punch line as much as show you silly antics for a cheap laugh. Early on Zed eats bear poop; Oh sleeps next to a man who confesses to raping goats and enjoys farting during the night for a laugh; and the high priest has something of an affection for Oh and asks him to rub oil all over his hairy chest. Scenes like these are wastelands when it comes to laughter just as is this entire film, but it didn't need to be.
Ramis is an accomplished comedic director and it surprises me he would lower himself to such bargain-basement attempts at laughter. I'm not sure if it was the last minute decision to recut the film from an R-rating to PG-13 that ripped the life out of the picture or if it just never worked out the way it was intended, but some genuinely fine moments were forgotten as the film moved on.
One such great running punch line that was abandoned midway through involved two separate occasions in which Oh found himself in impossible situations. The first of which had him being completely suffocated by a python only to have a jump cut showing him safe and sound back at camp. A similar moment followed shortly thereafter leading me to believe we may be in Mel Brooks’s territory, but that was it. I can't imagine a better director to pick up the Mel Brooks mantle than Harold Ramis and it seems as if he reached for it with this one, but someone either pulled him back or he didn't have the nerve to actually pick it up.
Ramis racked up the talent to give this story a run, but it never got out of the starting gate. You can be assured there will be an Unrated/R-rated DVD edition and perhaps we will then have something more than poop and fart jokes, but for now that's all this film offers.
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Thats upsetting. I heard this film wasnt very good and now that is confirmed, but there is always Transformers next Tues. night…and if that fails Public Enemies is my most anticipated film this year and I know Johnny Depp will not fail me
i agree with all your other movie reviews, but DISAGREE here, i quite enjoyed this movie alot, im jack black and michael cera fan thats why.believe it or not, i enjoyed just as much as THE HANGOVER.
I'm just going to watch mel's history of the world part 1 again.
I agree. There was only some funny scenes. But the rest of the movie sucks dick.
Victoria Jackson, once of SNL fame, wrote a candid essay entitled, "Why I Walked Out of 'Year One' Crying."
"Well, today I walked out of a Judd Apatow movie crying. It was the scene where the obese homosexual is fortune-telling by looking at the bowels of a sheep that has been sodomized by a person. The movie was “Year One.” I tried to be open-minded as I watched the first 20 minutes of masturbation, fornication, circumcision jokes, continual penis references, bestiality, violence, and Biblical blasphemy. I told myself this was a PG-13 movie and the writers were “lost” so they didn’t know how vulgar they were being. I looked at the ten-year-old and his father sitting next to me. I must be old-fashioned or something. But, then I noticed no one was laughing. No one was walking out either. I was hoping that the crude jokes were flying over the heads of the poor children who were sitting there wide-eyed and innocent. My daughter is 15 and she loves Jack Black and the guy from “Juno,” so I thought we could have a Mom/teenager date. I asked myself, 'Vicki, is this movie making you feel good?' Myself replied, 'This movie is making me angry, very sad, hopeless, and dirty-feeling.' As the onscreen obese gay man poked at the bloody intestines and told the fifth anal sex joke, I looked at my daughter, and we got up and walked out. I started crying in the parking lot as we walked to our car. I am not from this world. I am an alien. No wonder me and Apatow never hit it off."
Absolutely pathetic movie.I couldnt watch more than 20 minutes- just walked out. Totally peverts the bible….The bible says thou shalt not add or remove one word…I feel so sorry for the idiot that made this movie.