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Saturday Night Live hasn’t had the best track record with big-screen adaptations. Sure, characters like the Coneheads and The Ladies Man may have been funny in small doses, but stretch those short sketches out to 90 minutes or so, and you’ve generally got a disaster on your hands. Still, that doesn’t stop the cast and crew of the weekly sketch comedy show from trying. Finally, though, with their latest attempt, MacGruber, they’ve managed to produce their funniest film in years—as long as you’ve got the right sense of humor, that is.
When a nuclear warhead is stolen by notorious villain Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer), Colonel James Faith (Powers Boothe) knows that only one man can stop him: Special Forces legend MacGruber (Will Forte).
Presumed dead for the last 10 years—ever since Von Cunth bombed his wedding and killed his bride—MacGruber has instead been living a peaceful life in a South American monastery. But, given the opportunity to protect his country—and avenge his wife’s death at the same time—MacGruber can’t say no.
Even after his attempt to get the old team back together ends badly, MacGruber refuses to give up. So he teams up with his old friend Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) and newcomer Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Philippe) to bring Von Cunth to justice.
It probably won’t be the most intelligent comedy you’ll see this year, but MacGruber is painfully, awkwardly funny—in the crudest, most low-brow of ways. If you find butt jokes, less-than-subtle gay innuendo, and the word Cunth absolutely hilarious, you’ll be rolling in the aisles. Still, even if you don’t—even if your sense of humor is a little more mature than that of, say, a twelve-year-old boy—there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll get sucked into the insanity anyway. You won’t want to laugh (and you’ll probably even try not to laugh), but you won’t be able to stop yourself—because this madcap ‘80s action parody just keeps tossing out those unexpected comic grenades.
The story may not be particularly solid, but it has an episodic style that tends to make it feel more like a series of strung-together SNL sketches than one long film. The scenes are generally pretty short, and many of them could probably stand on their own. And maybe that’s why the film is relatively successful: because it essentially sticks to the show’s tried-and-true sketch-comedy approach. Basically, it’s just a whole bunch of sketches of MacGruber doing whatever makes the least amount of sense in any given situation.
Then again, the cast doesn’t hurt, either. Forte’s exaggerated facial expressions alone make him entertaining—and Philippe makes the perfect straight man to balance out Forte’s non-stop insanity.
Don’t expect sparkling wit—or a brilliant script—from this over-the-top action-comedy. But even SNL skeptics will get a few laugh-out-loud surprises from crazy, craptastic adventure.
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