Mr. McFarlane, you're film was
fucking awful. For twenty three minutes I sat and starred at the screen. I
waited as a barrage of wildly unfunny jokes and astoundingly bad delivery from
people who are supposed to be masters of the art form. For twenty three minutes
I wondered if a single joke would land. For twenty three minutes I wondered how
limited my life prospects were that I would keep sitting here, allowing myself
to be showered in your toxic verbal diarrhea. Then, at twenty three minutes, I
chuckled. I know it was twenty three minutes, because I paused the film just to
check how long it took McFarlane to land one joke. It was a gay joke that
finally got me. It was not overt, but it wasn't subtle. The joke felt natural,
it felt like it should've been the weak joke in a good movie. And just like
that it was gone, like a sliver of gold being washed away by a sea of unending
shit. And that is all this movie is really, several jokes that would stand out
on a bland episode of Family Guy that are drowned out in a nearly two hour
flurry of bad writing, bad delivery, shoddy writing and half assed
performances.
Let’s begin with the writing, it
is absolutely terrible for pretty much the two hour duration. It's almost as if
McFarlane had written down the premise on scrap paper as he took a shit and
then handed it off to The Cleveland Show's writing team. The jokes all have
this feeling of being recycled, like a comedian who has told the same joke a
million times and has grown bored with it and passed it on too his protégé to
recycle some more. The frontier is a dangerous place where any wacky thing can
kill you, photographs weren't always instant, and the frontier had hookers, bar
fights. That last sentence is how the movie feels, like the McFarlane and co.,
wrote down a list of stuff from the olden days and just filmed it, hoping that
the joke would come in the moment or some shit. Even the cut away gags feel
lazy. There’s no zing or surprise to them. They feel like a fat man squashed
into an airplane seat. This kind of laziness is unacceptable from McFarlane and
co. This brings us to the next point, with this hundred and how-ever many pages
of unbelievable ineptitude the actors are wasted.
The actors of the film are all
incredibly talented, save one. Neeson, Harris, Ribbisi, Silverman even
Gottfried have done wonderful things in the past but here they are simply left
hanging, scrambling for a lifeline. Neeson as the villain is limp. Neeson can
play a badass in his sleep and yet, somehow McFarlane’s shitty writing and direction
makes clinch one of the worst bad guys I've ever seen. Neither funny nor
menacing. Much of this seems to come from Leeson either not understanding his
role or not caring at all about it. He has the usual grisly growl but his
delivery seems off, like either the lines don’t work or Neeson is not sure of
how clench his face and body as he delivers these lines.
Silverman and Harris are left
repeating their general shtick, but with all the joy and fun sucked out of it.
Sarah Silverman for some reason is not doing her deadpan humour; instead she is
made to over act and force unfunny lines at the screen. I’m pretty sure that
here copy of the script was "You are a hooker, insert joke here". This
is probably the biggest shame of the film. You have one of the most talented
comics in the world, you could’ve given her a logline and had her write her own
dialogue the night before and it would’ve probably turned out better than this.
McFarlane quelled an angel while filming this and as such has saddened the world
a little bit more.
Harris on the other hand is given
the kitsch song and dance, maniacal mustache villain role. I've got no funnies
to say about this role, it just stinks. Everyone in this movie stinks, being
left with zingers like, "don't drink and horse!” Go fuck yourself and your
lazy movie McFarlane. Speaking of whom, his 'acting' is the worst; he makes
Tarantino look like Tom fucking Hanks.
Sure McFarlane can do some great
voice work and he is a terrific performer, his Oscar's hosting was fantastic. You
naysayers should just go back to your VCR and watch some eighties SNL reruns. His
work in this movie though is god awful. Every line, of every joke that escapes
his breath in this film will make you cringe. He is a self-aware cartoon
character and that isn't funny, it's just sad. What makes it even worse is that
his facial expressions almost never change. Think about it, McFarlane’s arms
flailing wildly at the mere concept of a joke, while his face remains more
frozen than a Keanu Reeves action figure. His vanity overcomes him in this film
and chews the worn concept out until it’s a deranged mess.
Usually I like to put in a little
something good about the movie, even if it's bad. Bucky Larson was made by
people who had fun; Prometheus had ambition and so on. A Million Ways to die in
the West has nothing good about it. It is recycled trash that should never have
made it to production. What makes it all worse is that it is a film made by
talented people who got lazy and are basically telling the audience to go fuck
themselves for two hours while McFarlane rakes in the cash and laughs at the
chumps he calls fans. This kind of dreck would be expected from the Wayans
brothers, or the guys behind Meet the Spartans, but not from McFarlane. If I
were McFarlane I would not have released this shit for the sheer sake of my
career.
I truly hope that you're
experience in making this dreck will only serve to make Ted 2 a better movie.
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