"Year One," Harold Ramis' new, inaccurately titled comedy, that suggests the pairing of the neurotic, sensitive straight man and the fat, loud-mouthed schlub is as old as history itself.
Perhaps that's why Jack Black and Michael Cera are playing to types so rigid they might as well be cast in stone.
If you've watched the trailer for the film then you already know the plot: Black's Zed and Cera's Oh live in a village in what is certainly not the first year of human existence.
The village is apparently in the Garden of Eden even though it's clearly not, and Zed and Oh pine for Maya (June Raphael) and Eema (Juno Temple), respectively.
One day, Zed eats the forbidden fruit, and soon the two friends set out to explore the world as they pledge to return as heroes to win their loves.
Along the way they stumble from one Bible story to another, meeting Cain (David Cross) and eventually making their way to Sodom, where the people inexplicably speak with British accents.
Anyone going into this film expecting even a hint of the Ramis of old is in for a rude awakening, which is all the more bewildering given the wealth of comic talent both in front of and behind the camera.
How could he come up with this? Keep in mind: Harold Ramis is the person most responsible for the rise of chaos and revelry in comedy.
He introduced raunch to the mainstream with his script for "Animal House" and his partnerships with Bill Murray represent, for many, the standard of cynical, skewed comedy.
Judd Apatow in particular owes his career to Ramis, which might explain why he would finance such a terrible script. Then again, maybe it exerted the same strange influence over him as it apparently did the others.
It doesn't help that Cera and Black are playing their old shtick: Cera is ironically detached, while Black doesn't read his lines so much as shout them like a drunken William Shatner. Occasionally, he simply devolves into noises and funny faces.
Why not just jangle keys at us, too?
And as shoddy as the script is, Ramis' direction fares no better: for some reason, he devotes most of the shots of this epically scaled comedy to close-ups, as if he was desperate to get a reaction, any reaction, out of the bored actors.
"Year One" is clearly shooting to be a piece of satirical blasphemy a la Monty Python's "Life of Brian," but it can't even hit the simpler parody of "History of the World Part I."
It's filled to the ceiling of its PG-13 rating with sodomy, circumcision and gay jokes - Oliver Platt's turn as a high priest makes Ken Jeong's mincing mobster look like a character from "The Wire" - yet Ramis is just wary enough of incurring any protests that he plays it frustratingly safe.
Yes, for all its gross-out gags, the only bold aspect of the entire film was the decision to include a blooper reel, as the thought of watching the crew having a good time with this after torturing us for 97 minutes is just insulting.
At least the cast has the decency to look as uncomfortable in these candid moments as they do in the final product.
Make no mistake: "Year One" is among the worst films of recent years, and the nadir of Ramis' career.
Cross those fingers for "Ghostbusters III," everyone.
-- Review by Jake Cole
Opinions Staff
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