Year One (Sony/Columbia)
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language and comic violence. (edited; originally Rated R for some sexual content and language.)
Starring Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Vinnie Jones, Hank Azaria, Juno Temple, Olivia Wilde, June Diane Raphael, Xander Berkeley, Gia Carides, Harold Ramis, Horatio Sanz.
Written by Harold Ramis, Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.
Directed by Harold Ramis.
GRADE: D+
REVIEWMel Brooks is alive and well, even though he doesn't make movies anymore.
Year One, a fictional account of ancient history pick ups where 1981's
History of the World Part I left off, this time starring Jack Black and Michael Cera as two cave men who evolve their way into biblical times.
Black stars as Zed, an inept hunter in a hunter-gatherer tribe and Cera stars as Oh, a shy gatherer. When the two best buddies are banished from their tribe, they travel out into the world and encounter Cain (David Cross) and Abel (an uncredited Paul Rudd) just before that famous first murder.
Zed and Oh join Cain as he runs from justice to beat the murder rap, and the two buddies eventually run into Abraham (Hank Azaria) and Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). When Abraham announces a new circumcision policy among his Hebrew tribe, Zed, Oh, and Issac escape to Sodom, where they are pressed into slavery.
The rest of the so-called "plot" in Year One revolves around Zed trying to avoid being ritually sacrificed by Sodom's high priest (Oliver Platt) and free his friends from slavery relying on the belief that he is somehow a "chosen one" of God, or "the" gods.
Year One is one of the most inane and worst movies of this year. There is very little to laugh at, aside from Michael Cera's patented trailing-off-under-his-breath musings. Jack Black continues to try and channel John Belushi in several attempts at physical and gross-out comedy gags, like eating poop.
The sexual humor in
Year One misses, too. The sight of Cera being forces as a slave to rub oil onto Oliver Platt's extremely hairy chest isn't funny; it's just gross and pointless. There are a lot of even more disgusting moments in the movie as well. The story line that veers in and out of biblical history is also a little distracting, making it difficult for the audience to get a grip on any kind of proper setting.
Year One is another Judd Apatow production, starring many of the usual Apatow suspects, like
Superbad alums Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Cera. Apatow's Hollywood evolution seems to be going backwards as he seems to be more interested in getting becoming more gross and crass than he is in turning good stories into good movies. It's hard to believe this is the creative force behind TV's
Freaks and Geeks and
The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Avoid
Year One if you can. Seeing it may cause your brain to de-evolve.
