- Release
date: May 30th, 2014 (U.S.)
- Director:
Seth MacFarlane
- Writers: Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, Wellesley Wild
- Editors:
Jeff Freeman
- Score
Composer: Joel Mcneely
- Cinematographer: Michael Barret
- Budget:
$40 Million
- Domestic
gross: unknown
- Material:
Digital
- Aspect ratio: 2.35 : 1
- Running time: 116 minutes
-
Current
Tomato Meter: 34%
When
I first caught the redband A Million Ways
to Die in the West trailer, I was immediately concerned by how funny it was. In my experience, a trailer packed to
its limits in funny, means every good joke has already been used. The first example springing to mind is Wayne’s World 2. That’s a damn funny trailer, because
the entire movie is contained within.
You will most certainly get a good laugh out of seeing this trailer, but
you will have made viewing the film obsolete by doing so. I am happy to say AMWTDITW (...Jesus) is
not entirely guilty of that sin.
This is a comedy with laughs to offer well beyond the two-minute
contents of its advertisement, but not quite two hours worth.
Seth
MacFarlane stars in his first big screen role as Albert, a cowardly,
pessimistic sheep farmer who loses his girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried) to
mustachioed douche bag, Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), and challenges him to a gun
fight to prove himself on the overzealous advice of western She-Ra badass, Anna
(Charlize Theron) who is somehow under the thumb of meanie-pants outlaw, Clinch
Leatherwood (Liam Neeson). I am
caging all of that in one sentence, because it is a high school movie and not
very interesting. Elements of Better Off Dead, and She’s All That (just to name a hundredth
of teen movies to which it compares) are ushered with such familiarity,
the arrival of certain story beats is almost cringe-worthy.
That
genre’s functions are really not the film’s problem, however. The framework of this “drama”, where
MacFarlane and Theron obviously fall in love, allows for surprisingly charming
performances by both leads.
Strangely, what causes more damage than the borrowed plot is
Macfarlane’s apparent admiration for Western’s. He spends a lot of time paying homage to the genre’s
classical form. The opening
credits drag over shots of Monument Valley sweeping enough to make John Ford
swoon. There are fabulously
well-shot (but, admittedly anti-climactic) chase scenes on horseback. There is a run-in with Native
Americans, a hoe down scene, and a homestead that appears to be an exact
replica of the one from Shane. That is all cool! None of that is funny! Well, the stuff that has more to do with the historical realities of the old west is pretty funny. Okay, and so is the scene with the tribe of
natives, lead by the great Wes Studi, but that bit slinks along following
the movie’s biggest boo-boo.
Let
it be known: this is a damn funny movie.
Sure, not every gag will require a change of underwear, but when it hits,
it hits hard. I saw this in the company
of a gentleman who, like myself, tends to laugh like a hyena when he really
gets wound up. Our fellow patrons
must have thought they were being hunted at times, because we sounded like we
were on the fucking prowl.
Unfortunately, the film sets up this gunfight with Neil Patrick Harris’
character, like the ultimate punch line to what should be a 90-minute
joke. We get there, where we get
poop jokes, and we are done with the gunfight… and the movie keeps going. As the last 30 minutes trudge by, you
find yourself just waiting for it to end.
People even walked out during the acid trip sequence. Yeah… after we’re ready for the end… we
have a hallucination featuring pissing sheep. It is definitely funny enough for a rental, but don’t drop
10 bones on this one for the theatrical experience.
You could go see Maleficent…
I hear that is kind of good in a way.
Readers,
