‘Year One’ comedy leaves fans disappointed, wanting more

Fans of Jack Black and Michael Cera may be disappointed with this summer’s release of “Year One.” While on the surface the movie came across as an interesting and quirky comedy, much of the film leaves something to be desired.

While the film has its momentary laughs, the movie has a good deal of dead-time in between jokes, bad jokes and obligatory plot devices. This is saddening, as the idea for the movie is mostly sound — a comedic retelling of ancient times, mixing in humorous looks at biblical figures.

Unfortunately, the real comedic value of the plot falls far short of its potential. Possibly the best use of the film’s retelling comes from David Cross as biblical figure Cain. Cross reappears throughout the movie as the same character and portrays Cain as a snarky and deceitful individual. Most other characters, such as Abraham (Hank Azaria) are sadly confined to very base humor — Abraham reveals an obsession with circumcision early on, and the rest of the character’s jokes are drawn from the same stagnant pool.

It should be noted that the problem lies not in the acting. Be it Azaria, Black, Cross or Cera, the acting in the movie was as good as it could have been. Good acting, however, cannot save a sinking script. Most of the humor came across as very base and silly; moviegoers attending the theater may be annoyed by the raucous horse-laughs of those who find fart jokes and crude sexual innuendoes hysterical. Many of the jokes caused one to wonder why the movie even bothered having a plot or character development — granted, it didn’t try too hard.

The action in the movie starts from the very beginning, and the characters move quickly over a multitude of settings. Having so much ground to cover did not weaken the movie, but poor writing did. Black and Cera visiting the ancient city of Sodom had a good deal of potential for humor, but this too was wasted, once again, on crude sexual humor.

Many characters exist simply as stock humor, such as the eunuch or the homosexual high priest of Sodom. Some important characters even lack an explanation as to their own existence in the movie, like the royal adviser who, for all the importance he seemed to have when introduced, received no development whatsoever, let alone a reason to be written into the script in the first place.

Black’s over-the-top nature and Cera’s awkward character mesh well together onscreen, and this chemistry somewhat redeems the movie. The two made a believable “best friend” tag-team, and often the pair is likable; the viewer is able to root for the film’s heroes to succeed. The character development, though, comes a tad too late in the movie (almost at the end!), and seems thrown in arbitrarily.

While the movie may have had great potential in the way of an idea and good actors, the script simply works against the film as a whole. Perhaps this is simply the beginning, though. It would be delightful to see Black and Cera onscreen together again, but the movie “Year One” leaves fans disappointed.

2 STARS