REVIEW: Year One (2009)
Year One
Rated: R
Runtime: 90 minutes
Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera
My rating: 2 stars
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I've spent the better part of my movie-watching life defending Jack Black. I said, “No, Nacho Libre was a funny movie.” I even told an audience member that when he questioned how good Year One would be.
I defended Mr. Black's choices in Tropic Thunder, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, Envy, and Shallow Hall. I can't bring myself to do it with Year One, a film that felt lost and forced from moment one.
Zed (Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) are cavemen who accidentally burn their tribe's dwellings and flee when the tribe tries to kill them. They don't know where they are going or what they want to do, but Black wants to prove that he is the smartest member of the tribe. The journey takes them through various bible stories, including when Cain (David Cross) kills Abel (Paul Rudd).
Zed and Oh eventually make it Sodom, where they find that love interests Eema (Juno Temple) and Maya (June Diane Raphael) have been enslaved. Their new mission is to free them.
This film struggles to find its footing early and stumbles all the way to its abrupt end. Its humor, while at times quite funny, gets as low as a two-minute scene featuring a series of long farts.
Black fails to bring his usual excitement to his character and doesn't sell the jokes. Cera's character is essentially Paulie Bleeker with long hair and a hide. He's awkward, bumbling and terrible with women. We've all seen enough of that.
But that really isn't the entire issue with Year One. That comes in Harold Ramis' writing. The script runs into corners without a sensible transitions. Zed and Oh will go in one direction, meet a character, have a few bible jokes with the person and then the conversation dies and the pair just jumps to the next scene.
At the end I really had to think hard about the point of Year One. I mean, Zed gives a speech to close the film about what he learned and what humanity should learn, but I didn't buy it. And his explanation (I won't give it so as to not ruin the film) wasn't what he set out to accomplish I don't think. It all made for muddied, mucky movie.
The funny parts came with solid wit in the writing. But those moments were so scarce, it made the film drag and feel more like a series of separate, unconnected scenes.
For example, 20 minutes is spent watching Abraham (Hank Azaria) try to kill Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). In the whole story, there is absolutely no point to it other than to get the brilliant Azaria and the increasingly more versatile Mintz-Plasse in the film. Those two are comedic chameleons, unlike Cera, whose one-track delivery is starting to wear thin.
This is supposed to be Black's movie – his first headliner live-action film since Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny in 2006.
He can't carry it because there is no where for Year One to go, except for maybe TBS at 8 p.m. some evening. I picture it as part of the “Dinner and a Movie” series. They could make a wild animal dish, maybe duck. Now that would be worth watching simply for a duck recipe. Otherwise, pass on Year One or wait for it to come out on DVD. Two stars.
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Where it's playing:
Canton/PotsdamSHOWTIMES
Watertown SHOWTIMES
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