I can’t think of any book less funny that the Old Testament. Maybe
that’s the point. In Year One, writer/director Harold Ramis
plays it for laughs, with generally uncomfortable results. We see Cain
(a disappointing David Cross) killing golden boy Abel (an un-credited
Paul Rudd) in cold blood; Abraham (an admittedly amusing Hank Azaria)
nearly sacrificing Isaac (the kid who played McLovin) to the almighty,
then deciding to simply snip off the end of the boy’s penis instead;
and numerous virgins sacrificed to a flaming pit in the decadent city
of Sodom. All of which are funnier than Jack Black putting poo in his
mouth, which also happens in Year One.
Perhaps Ramis has wanted to skewer the Old Testament since his bar
mitzvah, and to his credit it’s a bravely ambitious task that falls
well outside the boundaries of Hollywood convention. But Year
One is an unholy (pardon the pun) mess of a movie that would have
played best as a series of loosely related sketches—like
something Mel Brooks or Monty Python would have done. Unfortunately, a
dim, hopeless plot threads Black and Michael Cera through all these
different scenarios from the Good Book, and their “character
development” and “personal journeys” butt up unwelcomed against the
gags. There’s also a lot of God talk—which, given the source
material, is appropriate—but the movie tries to lob a few easy
answers at the audience toward the end, and it just further stinks up
an already stinky movie.
There are a few bright spots. Oliver Platt plays an
effeminate-yet-hairy priest in Sodom, in what has got to be one of the
most over-the-top, outrageous, and hilarious portrayals I’ve ever seen
in any movie. He can’t be onscreen for more than 10 minutes, but those
10 minutes almost—almost—warrant the ticket price.
There’s also a sequence where an enslaved Cera is painted gold and
forced to be a human statue during an orgy; his lack of immobility
wrings out a few laughs.
Aaaand then there’s Jack. I’ll admit I like Jack Black more than
most. Remember how good he was in that small role in High
Fidelity? Remember how his supporting part was a welcome ray of
sunshine in the clusterfuck of Tropic Thunder? But Black’s
transition from reliably funny sidekick to abrasive leading man is
still puzzling; a little Black goes a long way, and there’s a lot of
him in Year One.
Harold Ramis has had a hand in some seriously great
comedies—Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog
Day—but, lest we forget, he was also responsible for Club
Paradise and Stuart Saves His Family. Year One might
be better than either of those movies, but not by much. It’s possible
that years of television and DVD will be kind to this biblical romp’s
future—but until you can fast forward directly to the Oliver
Platt highlights, and skip over Jack Black putting feces in his mouth,
there isn’t any need to travel back to Year One.