Blu-Ray Review: ‘Year One’ Fails to Deliver a Single Laugh

CHICAGO – Here’s a thoroughly detestable comedy from some of the most appealing people in Hollywood. It could easily be mistaken for one of the fake movies advertised before “Tropic Thunder,” which cleverly spoofed the creative bankruptcy that befalls so many mainstream studio products. Jack Black and Michael Cera have both created comic personas that are wholly unique, and found great success with them in past films (Black’s pinnacle was “School of Rock,” Cera’s was “Superbad”). But both are guilty of using the same comedic well until there isn’t a drop of originality left, and in “Year One,” they are all dried up.

Blu-Ray Rating: 1.5/5.0

How could anyone, least of all Harold Ramis, think a caveman comedy would be a funny idea for a movie? When was the last time a caveman comedy was actually funny? From Ringo Starr’s “Caveman” and Mel Brooks’ “History of the World: Part 1” to Geico’s recent caveman commercials, cavemen have repeatedly proven an ancient principle of screen comedy: they are simply NOT funny!

Year One was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 6th, 2009.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

People in prehistoric garb with modern attitudes are not inherently amusing. The banter has to be clever, the comedy has to be fresh, and the characters have to be credible as more than cardboard caricatures, especially in a sketch stretched to feature-length. But Ramis is clearly aiming for broad Pythonesque hijinks that may have suited John Belushi and Tim Matheson a few decades ago. But in the hands of Black and Cera, the material is dead on arrival.

Year One was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 6th, 2009. Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

The film opens like a poor man’s “Apocalypto,” as Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) leave their hunting-gathering tribe to explore a drab wasteland filled with worn Biblical vignettes. Paul Rudd and David Cross show up as Cain and Abel long enough for the viewer to wish the film was about them. Hank Azaria and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin’ himself) are Abraham and Isaac, and Oliver Platt is the High Priest of a Vegas-like Sodom (his outlandish costume and makeup are the funniest things in the picture). All the while, Black and Cera go through the motions of their familiar personas without ever really connecting as a duo. Black is all eyebrow twitches and hollers, Cera is all neurotic quivers and stutters. It’s the worst screen pairing since “Ishtar.”

Though the script is credited to three writers, the actors just seem to be riffing on half-formed ideas. Anytime a scene builds to some sort of conflict, it promptly ends and moves on to the next bit. Cera is practically eaten twice in the picture, but the film never bothers to show how he was saved. What’s most embarrassing are the moments when Ramis has his characters argue about the meaning of existence in between the incessant onslaught of fart and foreskin jokes. Ramis has achieved depth in his comedies before (most memorably in his enduring masterwork, “Groundhog Day”), but here his attempts at existential repartee ring hopelessly false. As caveman comedies go, “Year One” is flatter than the earth.

“Year One” is presented in all-too-clear 1080p High Definition with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and is accompanied by English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish DTS 5.1 tracks. Special features include commentary from Ramis and the two leads, which is far more pleasurable than the film itself, along with the usual deleted scenes, featurettes and gag reels. The disc includes both theatrical and unrated film versions, and three time-wasting BD Live features. Viewers can cut their own version of various scenes, peruse real-time in-movie trivia, and send on-screen instant messages to friends while watching the film together, thus uniting the world in shared disgust.

By MATT FAGERHOLM
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com