I wish Jack Black well. I really do.
And Michael Cera, too. Funny guys, both of them.
But I'm sorry, films like Year One just aren't going to cut it anymore.
They were fine for when you were still struggling, when you didn't have your pick of the comedy material available in Hollywood. But you guys are on top - and this is what you make?
Perhaps you were blinded by the Harold Ramis brand, which is a lot thinner than it looks, if you examine his work as a director closely. But the script (by Ramis and Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg of The Office) wasn't all that funny when Mel Brooks did it and called it History of the World: Part I. Instructively, there was never a part two.
Jack Black as a caveman? Sure, that's a no-brainer. Michael Cera as a shy caveman? That could be funny.
Except that the joke here is that the Stone Age only exists among a backwards tribe in the mountain forest. When Black and Cera break from their tribe and run out of the woods about 20 minutes into the film, they find themselves in the biblical times of Cain and Abel and Abraham.
Yikes - evolution lite, as the characters hop-scotch across eons, looking surprised at the invention of the wheel and getting queasy at a high-velocity ride on a slow-rolling oxcart.
For the rest of this review, click here to reach my website: www.hollywoodandfine.com.
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