The Current Cinema

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• JC says:

  May 21, 2010 at 7:55 pm

  This was actu­ally sit­ting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes after sev­en reviews, but now that a num­ber of main­stream reviews have come out (not as many as you’d think, though, so I ima­gine it was­n’t actu­ally pre-screened for critics-at-large), it’s about in the 50% Positive range. Impossible to judge from the TV spots and PG trail­ers, as they surely don’t include any of the movie’s most risqué mater­i­al. Still, Forte and Wiig def­in­itely com­mit whole­heartedly to whatever mater­i­al they’re giv­en, so it might be worth a look once it makes it to DVD.
  I did notice, on imdb, some pro wrest­lers in the cast. Any of them giv­en much to do, or are they just can­non fod­der, Glenn? I’m par­tic­u­larly won­der­ing about that spiky-blonde-haired guy named Chris Jericho…

• Glenn Kenny says:

  May 21, 2010 at 8:00 pm

  @ JC: I don’t want to give any­thing away, but your instincts con­cern­ing can­non fod­der are more accur­ate than you know. The joke is a funny one, though.

• JC says:

  May 21, 2010 at 8:04 pm

  Heh. Well, I know how the premise of MacGruber works, so I can image where it goes.

• Mark Slutsky says:

  May 21, 2010 at 8:36 pm

  I’m glad I’m not the only one!
  The scene where the root of MacGruber and Val Kilmer guy’s enmity is explained killed me. (As did the car ste­reo run­ning gag.)

• lazarus says:

  May 21, 2010 at 8:47 pm

  But was it bet­ter than fel­low action movie par­ody Hot Fuzz? Because I laughed harder dur­ing that film than most in recent memory.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  May 21, 2010 at 8:53 pm

  Oh, no. “MacGruber” is NOT bet­ter than “Hot Fuzz.” I actu­ally don’t think almost any­thing is bet­ter than “Hot Fuzz.” And I’m not just say­ing that because Edgar Wright is my Facebook friend. “Hot Fuzz” is just…unbelievably great, and has a whole lot more heart than “MacGruber.” Of course “MacGruber“ ‘s heart­less­ness is part of its point.
  Yes, Mark, that gag in par­tic­u­lar is great, and emblem­at­ic of what I was talk­ing about. Dana Stevens of “Slate” was sit­ting in front of me, and when the you-know-what joke in that bit came up, as I was laugh­ing I also thought, “So I guess she’s gonna like this one bet­ter than ‘Knocked Up.’ ” I haven’t checked to see if I was right though.

• Jason M. says:

  May 21, 2010 at 10:48 pm

  http://www.slate.com/id/2254531/
  Dana does­n’t seem to be a fan, Glenn.
  Also, “Hot Fuzz” is without a doubt one of the greatest action com­ed­ies of all time. When Simon Pegg rides into the sleepy little English ham­let at the end and it all starts going down, I was laugh­ing so hard I had trouble breathing.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  May 21, 2010 at 11:07 pm

  Thanks Jason; it’s funny; Stevens’ review makes a few of the same points as mine…except I like the film a lot more than she did. I kind of can­’t believe I’m still hold­ing a grudge against her for the sum­mer of “Knocked Up” abor­tion com­plaints. And yet I am con­tent that I have done right. How odd.

• Fuzzy Bastard says:

  May 21, 2010 at 11:28 pm

  A good movie based on an SNL sketch? That’s… almost unima­gin­able. I mean, A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY is only the most recent in the long and ugly pro­ces­sion of broken, shattered bod­ies that is SNL movies… CONEHEADS. IT’S PAT. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr…

• JW says:

  May 22, 2010 at 9:58 am

  Comedies rarely go as far as I’d like them to go. Thus I found MACGRUBER’s will­ing­ness to be dis­turb­ing extremely refresh­ing. While MACGRUBER may not be as sub­vers­ive as FEMALE TROUBLE, in its own cock­eyed way it is a very hon­est movie – hon­est about what a psy­cho­path its title char­ac­ter is, hon­est about the genre it is par­ody­ing. The scene where MacGruber fucks his murdered wife’s ghost, cul­min­at­ing in her sigh­ing “I shot, too,” is just a per­fect sen­dup of the weird, queasy sen­ti­ment­al­ity of many action films.

• Kevin J. Olson says:

  May 22, 2010 at 1:14 pm

  I agree that the film isn’t on the same level as Hot Fuzz which was spoof­ing so much more than the cur­rent action genre. MacGruber seems more inter­ested in riff­ing on those C‑grade, late night Cinemax action films star­ring Jeff Speakman or Dolph Lundgren. It’s actu­ally quite appro­pri­ate that MacGruber is com­ing out the same sum­mer as The Expendables. Oh, and watch­ing Val Kilmer ham it up was one of the best things about the movie.
  Glad to see such an estab­lished crit­ic like this movie much in the same way I did. Great review, Glenn.

• bill says:

  May 22, 2010 at 9:36 pm

  “You know that’s the bloke we done for speed­ing earlier??”