Year One - DVD Review

*

Starring Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Vinnie Jones, Juno Temple, Olivia Wilde, Hank Azaria, Paul Rudd, Xander Berkeley, Bill Hader and Harold Ramis.
Directed by Harold Ramis.

I've never seen Caveman, the 1980 prehistoric comedy with Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long, but my guess is it's no less amusing now than this movie is (particularly to see Long in pre-Diane Chambers mode). I'm almost tempted to get it just to compare.

Jack Black's been funny, and Michael Cera's been funny, but it doesn't necessarily mean they make a good comic team. In fact, they do the opposite of compliment each other. Black's devious eyebrows and Cera's stammering deadpan only highlight how crutch-like those tools can be.

They play Zed, a bad hunter, and Oh, a weak gatherer, and they get banished from their village after Zed eats the fruit from the Tree of Life. They trek around and meet several characters, like Adam, Cain, Abel, Abraham, Isaac, and the fine citizens of Sodom & Gomorrah.

At one point, the two are in a dungeon, but Oh is hung upside-down. It might be amusing when Oh calls for the guard because he has to pee. All humor is sucked out of the room when we then see... well, you know. The movie's full of bad gags like that.

Harold Ramis directed this? The guy who did Stripes and Groundhog Day? There are several talented actors in the supporting cast too, but this is a wasted effort.