MacGruber

Well as the opening theme song says, "He made a fu#@ing movie. MacGruber!!!" Indeed he did. As always, here's the trailer...

Now let's face it, as awesome as SNL has been for (nearly) all of it's 35 years, the movies based off their most famous sketches have never really lived up to expectations and have often been pretty terrible. There are exceptions of course...Waynes World and The Blue Brothers come to mind. But as Rotten Tomatoes recently pointed out...there are far more failures than success when it comes Lorne Michaels and Co.'s attempts to take what is funny for 2 minutes every week and build a feature film out of it.

While MacGruber is certainly not The Blue Brothers or even Waynes World, I enjoyed it. My first reaction when I walked out was, "Wow, that was stupid...but fun." I had very low expectations coming in for the obvious reason of how do you make a movie out of MacGruber? The SNL sketch is the same every time. MacGruber, Kristen Wiig, and that week's host are trapped inside a building with a ticking bomb. MacGruber is confident he can get out of the sticky situation with only the random materials within the room. But despite Kristen Wiig's pleas of, "10 seconds, MacGruber!" he get's distracted, talks too much, and in mid-sentence....KABOOOM! And hilarity ensues. Given that premise I thought this could be the worst SNL movie since It's Pat or Stuart Saves His Family. But this movie is very self aware and has some solid actors to back up it's combination of vulgarity and "stupid" comedy.

The best thing this movie has going for it is it's R rating. Lines such as , "I'll fu@k anything in this room, just tell me what you want me to fu#k!!" as well as MacGruber's patented ultra violent and equally absurd "throat ripping" would not have been possible without the R Rating. And while I am too lazy to look it up, I think this may have been the first R rated SNL movie. They should keep that in mind for the future because, at least in this case, it made all the difference.

Over the last couple years Kristen Wiig has become one of my favorite SNL cast members and is becoming one of the best comedic actresses around. Her (small) performance in Knocked Up is one of the best parts of the movie, and she was excellent as Maggie Mayhem in Whip It. She stays on a roll this time as well. In one scene she enters a coffe house nervously disguised as MacGruber, who walks her through everything from what to say to how to drink her tea via an ear piece. The comedic timing is brilliant and can't be done justice by my rambling text...so check it out for yourself. That scene alone is worth the $5 to get in.

Some reviews have said MacGruber is this years The Hangover. That is far from the truth but it's an enjoyable, funny flick. So if you've already seen Iron Man II and are looking for something to see this weekend, it get's my recommendation and 3 out of 5 helmets...(going to try and have a different helmet each week)