BEFORE: Well, since "Commando" was essentially a parody of itself, here's another parody of the action-movie genre. And yes, I'm sending out Birthday SHOUT-out #47 to Will Forte (last seen in "Baby Mama"), born June 17, 1970. I thought linking from last night's film would be a problem, but it's actually simple - David Patrick Kelly, one of the villains in "Commando", was in "Flags of Our Fathers" with Ryan Philippe, who plays one of MacGruber's team members here.
THE PLOT: Ex-special operative MacGruber is called back into action to take down his archenemy, Dieter Von Cunth, who's in possession of a nuclear warhead and bent on destroying Washington, D.C.
AFTER: Can a parody be too much of a parody? Can a parody not take itself seriously enough? I dig films like "Airplane" because they take comedy so seriously that it becomes funny again - but this one can't seem to stay true to any one style, or set of gags.
Of course, it's based on a recurring Saturday Night Live character, one who's constantly blowing himself up, and then (somehow) reappearing in another potentially explosive situation in which he gets distracted (AGAIN) from disarming a bomb, and so on in a never-ending episodic cycle. I understand that they can't maintain that same storyline in a movie - Reel 1, MacGruber blows up, the end - but they replaced it with a bunch of different things that don't seem to cohere together.
Thinking back to films like "Spies Like Us" and the "Austin Powers" series, both of which had former SNL performers as spies, this one doesn't seem to be in the same league. And I can't really point to any one thing and say, "Oh, HERE's where the film ran off the rails." Rather, it just seems generally misguided, like someone had a bunch of ideas to make the film funny, and then just failed to run them by anyone to see if they actually were.
I recall the other night the way that Jim Belushi's character in "Red Heat" was described - his boss said he was "a good cop" and "a total screw-up", which didn't make much sense. Similarly, MacGruber is portrayed as a messed-up idiot for most of the movie, and then somehow has the expertise to save the day when it counts the most - so how does he get to be both things? What gives him the power to fail upwards?
I wish this movie were a little more coherent, and I wish it were a little funnier - no, make that a LOT funnier. While I didn't feel it was a complete waste of time, it didn't feel like it was worth seeking out either. Swing and a miss, I think.
Also starring Val Kilmer (last seen in "Top Gun"), Kristin Wiig (last seen in "Adventureland"), with cameos from Maya Rudolph (last seen in "Grown Ups") and a TON of WWE wrestlers: Chris Jericho, Mark Henry, Kane, the Big Show, the Great Khali, etc.
RATING: 3 out of 10 bullet wounds
But I have to admit that the movie was perfectly true to its SNL origins.
ReplyDeleteIn the sense that I'll be channel-surfing, I'll spot "MacGruber" in progress, think "Christ, this **** again?", and then keep moving.