Mini-Review: Year One

Never before has so much comic talent been so wasted as in the new film “Year One.” You would think that a film directed by Harold Ramis and featuring comic talents like Hank Azaria, David Cross, and Paul Rudd would draw at least a few laughs. And it does—very, very, very few. I’ve laughed more at episodes of “24” than I did while watching “Year One.”

The plot, such as it is, involves two hunter-gatherers, Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera), who blah blah blah fart joke blah blah blah poop joke blah blah blah boobs.

All right, all right, I’ll make an effort to describe the plot, but I don’t know why. The screenwriters clearly didn’t do the same when writing the damn thing. Zed and Oh are cast out from their Stone Age village after Zed takes a bite of the Forbidden Fruit. The two Cro-Magnon clods then embark on a mildly zany adventure through a world populated by Biblical characters like Cain (David Cross), Abraham (Hank Azaria), and Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, formerly McLovin of “Superbad” fame).

Eventually, Zed and Oh wind up in Sodom. This, as you might guess, provides about 90% of the joke material for the film’s second half. I forgot to mention the love story, which is easy to do, as the script keeps forgetting about it as well. Zed and Oh have a very, very strong desire to know—in the carnal sense—village beauties Maya and Eema. But, unfortunately, those two have wound up as slaves of the Sodomites. Which leads to the film’s central drama: how many gay jokes can Jack Black possibly make?

The answer is too many. Far too many. Most of the humor comes from…well, that assumes there is humor, which is a very big jump to make. One memorable scene involves Michael Cera peeing on his own face. As I watched, I felt nothing except a tremendous sadness—for Michael Cera, for Harold Ramis, and for everyone involved in the making of this movie.

I think my visceral hatred of this film stems in part from my visceral hatred of Jack Black, the Human Fart Joke. The man would mug his way through a film about the Holocaust given half the chance. He can never turn off his goofy, off-the-wall persona, which I find unfortunate, given that I find Jack Black about as funny as emphysema. Michael Cera also comes out of the movie worse for wear. When will he hit puberty? And when he does, what will happen to his career?

Nearly all the best moments appear in the trailer, so you might as well save yourself two hours and ten bucks and watch that instead. A few scenes occasionally rise to the level of Monty Pythonesque absurdity I hoped for. David Cross proclaims a list of crimes punishable by stoning, which begins with “blasphemy” and “heresy” before veering into “hyperbole” and “syzgzy.” Abraham says of the Hebrews “a noble people, but not very good at sports.”

The audience laughed at those lines. The rest of the movie, not so much. Long stretches passed without the slightest chuckle from the viewers. Some scenes—particularly the indelible image of Jack Black licking human excrement—drew groans and muffled shrieks, but no guffaws or even giggles. And who, I ask, thought it was a good idea, let alone a funny one, to include a scene in which Michael Cera smears oil all over the chest of a hirsute High Priest? Not Harold Ramis, I hope. I expect better from the man who gave us “Stripes” and “Ghostbusters.”

Perhaps “Year One” is the inevitable endpoint of the current crop of juvenile comedies. In those films the characters only act like cavemen; here, they actually are club-wielding leopard-skin wearing troglodytes. The lowest common denominator humor remains. A fart joke in the twentieth century plays just the same as one in the first century. That doesn’t make it any funnier, though. “Year One” is the pinnacle of devolution. If nature tolerates only the survival of the fittest, then where on earth did this film come from?

BONUS: “Year One” was preceded by several trailers, most of which looked fairly terrible. I’ll give you a summary of each.

Zombieland, a terrible-looking movie about zombies killing humans.

Slayer, a terrible-looking movie about humans killing humans.

District 9, a terrible-looking movie about humans killing aliens.

Transformers 2, a terrible-looking movie about giant robots killing each other and a few humans to boot.

The Proposal, a terrible-looking movie that will likely end with the audience members killing themselves.