Year One
Well, look at it this way. It’s better than “Analyze That”…right?
Of course it is. True, “Year One” takes the low road for laughs. (By which I mean, most of producer Judd Apatow’s movies look sophisticated in comparison.) But it does have laughs, which is more than I could say for “Dance Flick,” “Imagine That,” and “The Proposal.” Of course, with a cast like this, it’d be hard to imagine not getting some humor in return for your time in the theatre.
Co-writer/director Harold Ramis has been coasting on easy laughs for a while since his best film, 1993’s “Groundhog Day.” But say this for the man- the “Ghostbusters” co-writer hasn’t given up on high concepts, even if he seems to have on high-brow laughs. He doesn’t quite match earlier successes like “Analyze This,” “Vacation,” and “The Ice Harvest” (which was an uncharacteristic dark gem from the director), but he easily moves past the likes of “Bedazzled” and even “Multiplicity” (which was notable only for Michael Keaton’s star turn deluxe) in getting big laughs.
Jack Black and Michael Cera are an acerbic comedy team as Zed and Oh, respectively. Zed’s a hunter who isn’t good at the hunting. Oh’s a gatherer that gets picked on in a tribe in Biblical times. They both long for women of the tribe- Zed for the lovely beauty Maya (June Diane Raphael), Oh for the blonde hottie Eema (Juno Temple)- but neither are deemed “man enough” for the job. One day, a frustrated Zed eats from the Tree of Knowledge. Eating the Forbidden Fruit causes Zed to be banished; Oh follows because, well, then it wouldn’t be a buddy movie.
And so the film goes through the beats outlined in the trailer- David Cross and Paul Rudd are a riot as Cain and Able, the Biblical brothers who were ground zero for every feuding brother since (and Ramis has a quick and hilarious role as their father Adam); Hank Azaria is his usual genius as Abraham, the Jewish father who nearly sacrificed his son Isaac (“Superbad’s” Christopher Mintz-Plasse, also pretty funny) until God forced his hand- too bad he couldn’t do so before the circumcision; and Oliver Platt is unnerving as a High Priest in Sodom that enjoys having his body oiled by young boys…enter your Catholic church joke here.
There’s a lot of laughs in this movie- it has at least the ratio of laughs per minute that “Borat” did. Unfortunately, Ramis’ focus isn’t quite as good as that film’s was. He’s got the cast (Bill Hader as a shaman and Olivia Wilde as a princess also score) and the concept, but even at a brisk 100 minutes, it feels too long. Maybe a tighter edit (with trims here and there) would help, maybe a tighter story is what the film needs, but even in its’ flawed, PG-13 form, “Year One” does manage a steady stream of funny, which is all I hoped for anyway.
