Tuesday, May 10, 2011

MacGruber (2010)

Directed by: Jorma Taccone 
Starring: Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe

I didn't go into MacGruber with awfully high expectations. It is, after all, a film based off of a Saturday Night Live sketch, and therefore should be graded on a curve. Even with that taken into consideration, MacGruber manages only to be slightly better than terrible. 

Sorry, Pat... You're still in last place. But it was close. 


MacGruber, on its face, is a parody of 1980's TV action shows. Once you start watching, you'll notice the only things it draws from this source material is the main character's looks, and something to name the film. MacGruber (Forte) is an ex secret agent, skilled (so they say) in making weapons out of everyday objects. He is approached by the US government to stop a terrorist, Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer) who has stolen a nuclear weapon. MacGruber is reluctant to take the mission, until he hears that the terrorist behind the plot is the same man who killed his wife years earlier. 

The humor is low brow, and usually consists of copious use of the F-word, and various instances of bathroom humor. Not that I have a problem with bathroom humor or cursing, its just that this film uses them as a substitute for actual humor. I could have pitched this to a group of third graders, and they could have told me I was a dumb ass and come up with something substantially better themselves.  The film managed to make me chuckle only a couple of times. And when it does find a joke that doesn't fall flat on its face, it repeated it multiple times until you are sick of it. Even the jokes that don't work are repeated more than once. 

Guys, guys.. Get this. We'll do the celery up the butt bit, not once -pay attention now- but twice. 

Bottom Line: 3/10:  Most of the jokes aren't funny, the characters can be annoying, and the story is downright dull. Watching Macgruber was only slightly less painful than having a vegetable shoved in your rear.  




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