Year One (*)

Directed by: Harold Ramis
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, Paul Rudd
Seen: August 27th 2009

* Out of ****

Year One will without a doubt be the worst film I’ll see all year (touch wood, please). The humour never lifts off from being crude or sexual or both, and the story is laughably (but not in a good way for a comedy) bad. I was expecting a terrible film, but nothing as bad as this. I was simply hoping to tune out and maybe enjoy a laugh or two in an unmemorable film, but I couldn’t tune out as I was constantly thinking how this film cannot get any worse, and then constantly having to review my earlier statement.

Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) are two prehistoric men who somehow manage to be stupid enough to be kicked out by their prehistoric tribe. The start a road trip of sorts and end up (as if the matching of prehistoric man and the Tree of Knowledge in a single time line isn’t enough) meeting Kane (Cross) and Abel (Rudd), their family (concerned as Abel has disappeared), and their lesbian (you’ve read it right) sister. They also run into Abraham (Azaria) and Isaac (Mintz-Plasse) just as Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac (no ram turns up to save Isaac, instead Abraham does not go ahead with the sacrifice). Somewhere in this all they are also on a rescue mission – to save their tribe, and by extension Oh’s love Eema (Temple) and Zed’s love Maya (Raphael) from slavers, out of Sodom and Gomorrah. Crude and sexual humour and situations indeed…

If the aim of the filmmakers was to make something to have viewers cringe every minute (and once again, not the good kind of cringing like The Office (both UK and US) employs, but the disgusting kind), then this film is an unmitigated success. There has to be something out of sorts with those who aim to make a film like this, you must think? Looking at director Harold Ramis’ resume, he seems at the very least half competent, with titles like Analyse This, Analyse That, Multiplicity and Groundhog Day attributed to his name. Jack Black might also not be the top artistic talent of this decade, but he’s made some good films too, Nacho Libre, Be Kind Rewind and King Kong comes to mind, telling a tale of an actor who usually knows slightly better. Not always, but usually. Michael Cera, in his type-cast singularity, has appeared in some great films too (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Juno), as well as the brilliant TV-series Arrested Development.

So where did it all go wrong? Who knows? I’ve never been this offended by what a movie offered me. And I don’t mean that in terms of religious or moral offence, though the movie offers that in spades too, but by way of assuming people anywhere will find even the slightest enjoyment out of its horrible age-old poorly recycled jokes. Year One is the worst film I’ve seen in some years, not only in 2009, and it should be banned for being a no-use time waster.