Review: Year One

Year One

OPENING: 06/19/2009

STUDIO: Columbia Pictures

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

SOUNDTRACK: N/A

The Charge
Meet your ancestors.

Opening Statement
My reaction when first hearing about Year One: "Hey, a new Harold Ramis comedy? Cool beans! I’ll keep an eye out for it."



My reaction to Year One now that I’ve seen it: "$*#@. #*@!, #*!@, $%!@."


Facts of the Case
Year One begins in the Year of Our Lord Who the Heck Knows, a time period I am not familiar with. There we meet two cavemen: an incompetent hunter named Zed (Jack Black, School of Rock) who nobody likes because he is both an idiot and incompetent; and Oh (Michael Cera, Superbad), a wimpy gatherer who can’t seem to garner the respect of anyone. For some inexplicable reason, Zed and Oh are friends. One day, while wandering through the woods, they come across The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Zed impulsively eats from the tree, gaining no additional knowledge or intelligence, but does get kicked out the camp as a consequence for his sacrilege. Oh decides to follow Zed, and they embark on a series of misadventures involving Cain (David Cross, The Grand) and Abel (Paul Rudd, I Love You, Man), the prophet Abraham (Hank Azaria, The Simpsons), the city of Sodom, a princess (Olivia Wilde, Turistas), and a couple of attractive slave girls (June Diane Rapheal and Juno Temple).

The Evidence
The trailers for Year One didn’t look particularly good, but I had hopes it might be an entertaining movie. Sure, director Harold Ramis hasn’t always struck gold (Analyze That, anyone?), but even his least successful films have been reasonably engaging. Alas, Year One represents a low point in Mr. Ramis’ career. Do you want to know how bad this movie is? The funniest moments are in the trailer. In truth, the best this film can hope to achieve is painless mediocrity and it doesn’t even come close, barely managing to distinguish itself from the abysmal comedies coming from the Epic Movie/Date Movie/Disaster Movie crowd.

The film plays like a low-rent version of Mel Brooks’ A History of the World, Part 1, which itself was a low-rent version of a Monty Python film. The plot is a loosely connected series of illogical threads designed to tie together a group of poorly-conceived sketches. As such, we’re treated to material that wouldn’t even make it into the final half-hour of Saturday Night Live. I suppose there is some potential enjoyment to be had in poking fun at the lifestyles of cavemen and Old Testament figures, but Year One jumps on every obvious joke and clubs it into the ground.

For example, Zed and Oh are attempting to follow the trail of some slave-traders. In order to get an idea of how far away the traders are, Zed decides to examine the warmth of their fecal matter. As if this stuff wasn’t tired and boring enough, do we really need five minutes to watch Zed smell, taste, and chew on it, analyzing what foods the traders have been recently eating? Likewise, anytime an opportunity for a sex joke appears, the film not only takes it but repeats it endlessly. You can bet if you come across a eunuch in this film, you will not only find out what body part he’s missing, but where he keeps it and what he’s planning to do with it.

Whose terrible idea was it to cast Jack Black in the lead role? Black is hit-and-miss with me to begin with, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a less inspired performance. Pulling out the same sort of over-the-top chaos that defines his Tenacious D personality, he seems to be on autopilot with a performance full of tired shtick that won’t entertain anyone over the age of seven (not that anyone so young should be permitted to see this film, as it considerably pushes the boundaries of the PG-13 rating). The writing isn’t all that funny to begin with, but Black does absolutely nothing to make it any more amusing. Almost every line he delivers sounds like a rocker greeting an audience. Instead of, "All right, Detroit! Are you reeeeady to ROCK?", it’s "All RIIIIGHT! Let’s go over THAT-a-way, OW!"

Consider for a moment this film features the likes of Michael Cera, Hank Azaria, Harold Ramis, Oliver Platt, David Cross, Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Bill Hader. With a cast like this, you could make something side-splitting. The only problem is none of them are funny in Year One. I only laughed twice: once at Ramis, and once at Azaria. To be perfectly honest, both of those laughs were more like mild chuckles, partially generated by my goodwill towards these two men. It didn’t last long.


With characters from many different eras of ancient history, the only conceivable reason I can find for calling the movie Year One is this: if the film makes money, they can call the next one Year Two. Please, for the love of all that is sacred, don’t let that happen.

Closing Statement
This one should have no trouble carving out a place for itself on many "Worst of 2009" lists, including mine. So let it be over, so let it be done.

The Verdict
1/10

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