I've signed up to Letterboxd, which is a "social network for sharing your taste in film"; which basically means it lets people review, rate, and keep track of all the films they watch.I encourage you to follow me there, or else follow me on Twitter where I'll be posting links to future Letterboxd reviews. Alternatively, you may have noticed a widget in the left sidebar of DMD, where I'll list my five most recent Letterboxd reviews.
By means of a special preview for people too lazy to click a link (they exist), below is my inaugural Letterboxd review of 2010 spoof comedy MacGruber:
My hope for an AUSTIN POWERS-style discovery of a comedy classic everyone ignored at the cinema was short-lived, with this laborious and unfunny '80s action hero spoof. Based on a Saturday Night Live character parodying MacGyver, Will Forte plays the eponymous hero who's called back into action, RAMBO III-style (or HOT SHOTS II-style?), to stop a terrorist played by Val Kilmer—whose name, Dieter Von Cunth, is probably the cleverest thing about this lame comedy.
Forte gurns and yells his way through a storyline that runs out of good jokes after 20-minutes, before the plot gives out 10-minutes later. It was a struggle to stay awake an hour in. Ryan Phillipe gives the film's best performance as MacGruber's reluctant sidekick, but all of its best moments are in the trailer, and the writing gets little mileage out of doing for '80s action cinema what AUSTIN POWERS did for '60s spy thrillers.
It doesn't even have a firm grip on its lead character; who's introduced as an all-American hero with the medals to prove it, but spends the entire movie being inept and infuriating the boss who lauded him. It's like a PINK PANTHER movie if Commissioner Dreyfuss went looking for the retired Clouseau, and had somehow forgotten what a clutz he is.
A weak SNL movie, which I guess is upholding a tradition rarely broken.
