Posted on: May 26th, 2010 REVIEW: MacGruber
I’ve been excited for MacGruber since it was announced it would be turned into a feature film. I always foam at the mouth when the skit appears on Saturday Night Live, as I found it balanced 80’s parody and modern humour perfectly. Oh, and the theme song kills.
So, I went into the film with low hopes, and moderate expectations. SNL has a very convenient way of killing off it’s very memorable characters in less than memorable films. And don’t hand me your Wayne’s World argument, that movie is played out and not as funny as everyone thinks.
The good news is, MacGruber delivers. BIG time. The bad news, I don’t have any. I enjoyed the film immensely, but I also completely understand what the cast and film-maker (Jorma Taccone) were going for. It’s tongue-in-cheek, extremely over the top, an hardcore parody and it’s damn funny.
Will Forte plays MacGruber, an ex CIA operative pulled back into the espionage world when his arch-nemesis Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer or as I call him Chubby VK) steals a nuclear warhead and plans to level Washington with it. What more plot do you need. That was the plot for everything in the 80’s, remember that episode of The Smurfs when Clumsy has HAD it, and steals a nuclear mushroom and shoves it up Gargamels……anyway, the plot works.
Ryan Philippe and Kristen Wiig play MacGrubers crack team partners, and there is some genuinely funny dialogue between all the characters. The good thing about the script, is since it was given a hard R rating, there are very little jokes given away in the trailers. They’re too filthy or riddled with the F bomb. It’s crude and juvenile, but that’s what we’ve been told about this film from the beginning. You have to go in with that expectation, what brings it up a notch, into great, is the absolutely fantastic performance from Will Forte, and the nods to everything 80’s.
Director Taccone had a definite vision visually, not marring the film down in an 80’s feel, balancing the parody with the expectations of a new millennium audience. Crisp visuals, lots of explosions, old school sets (posh mansion, warehouse, bomb hangar) done in a modern way all add the MacGruber feel to the film. Everything feels familiar and new, that even if you don’t have an appreciation for old school action/adventure you will still enjoy the film.
It doesn’t pander to it’s audience, it doesn’t have to. It runs at a light 90 minutes, back packs enough into that time to keep you entertained. There were only 8 other people in the theatre besides myself and my partner, and we all laughed loud and hard through-out the film. It’s a shame that more people aren’t going to see this film based on the SNL film curse, but I feel that Macgruber is going to get a cult following when it hits DVD, I’m glad I saw it in the theatre, but television viewings and DVD replays are what’s going to get this film to a wide audience.
If you get a chance, give MacGruber a view in the theatre. Turn off your brain and see the film as the entire cast and crew intended. An homage, crude and delightful….and containing the best sex scene that I have seen since Team America, that scene ALONE is worth the price of admission.
Time for me to eat some celery.
Front page nudey image courtesy of WWTDD