Year One

(2009)

Directed by

Harold Ramis

Review by Terry Plucknett

Posted - 6/19/09

When I viewed the trailer for this film, I was really excited for when it was going to reach theatres.  After viewing the film, I realize that the reason the trailer looked so good is because they put every highlight of the film in that trailer.  I want to go back to a time when I still thought Year One had the potential of being good.  I was much happier then…

The film centers around two friends, Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera).  After Zed, a complete screw-up, decides to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to get smarter, the two companions are banished from their village.  From there, they begin a journey through Biblical history witnessing about 1000 years of history in a week.  First, they witness Cain (David Cross) killing his brother Abel (Paul Rudd).  Cain takes them home where Zed spends the night with Adam’s lesbian daughter and Oh stays with a flatulence-loving son.  After the night, Cain leads the two into town where he sells them into slavery with the rest of inhabitants of their former village.  When they escape, they meet Abraham (Hank Azaria) as he is about to sacrifice his son Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).  They escape this family as Abraham is threatening to circumcise them.  They head off to Sodom where the their villagers, and love interests, are now slaves.  There, they fumble around and eventually save the day and get the girls.  How else would it end?

From the very first scene, I knew this movie was going the wrong way.  The hunters are going after a boar.  They are just about to get him when Zed throws his spear and hits another hunter and scares off the animal.  Where this film could have been very smart and witty, it instead relied on crude and stupid humor overplaying the prehistoric setting of the film in the first five minutes.  Now what I am saying about this film has nothing to do with the Biblical depictions and inaccuracies.  I knew coming in that it was going to be inaccurate and didn’t care.  I also thought that the depictions of the Biblical stories were some of the highlights of the film.  There is no religious bias against this film.  It’s just bad.  Like I said, instead of being a smart, biting comedy, it insults the audience by going for stupid, crude, simple humor.  It doesn’t need to take itself seriously, but do we need to know about Adam’s lesbian daughter, or the eunuch who was castrated and keeps his testicles tied to his belt, or an extensive and continuing joke about Oh rubbing oil on the very hairy high priest?  The answer is a resounding no.

Looking at the minds behind this film, and the premise, it sounds like it would be a quality film.  It was produced by the king of comedy in recent years, Judd Apatow, and directed by Harold Ramis, who along with being Egon in the Ghostbusters movies, also has directed such classic comedies as Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Groundhog Day.  A great comedic cast was put in place as well, with Jack Black, Michael Cera, and others.  The formula for a good film was in place, but something went catastrophically wrong.  I was hoping Sodom would be destroyed at some point to bring the movie to an end earlier without having to see the ending because I really didn’t care.  At no point do you really feel a need to root for the characters because you never necessarily like them, especially Jack Black’s character.  Michael Cera does the best with what he has, and does have some moments, but Jack Black’s character is one that should be a villain, yet we are supposed to root for him as the hero.  There are just so many things that don’t work with this film.  I wish the trailer had portrayed the movie for what it was.  I hate when I get my hopes up for a movie, and then get disappointed, especially to this extent.

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