Weekend Review: Year One.

Synopsis

Zed and Oh (Jack Black and Michael Cera) are two prehistoric dudes, who can't hunt or gather berries and constantly fail to get attention from their respective love interests. They soon are vanished from their tribe after eating from the tree of knowledge, and embark on an existential quest, where they will encounter biblical characters such as Cain (David Cross) and Abel (Paul Rudd), Isaac (Christopher Mintz Plasse) and Abraham (Hank Azaria).

My Comments

Year One starts out like a parody of last year's "10,000 B.C." and gradually evolves into the kind of comedy closer to "Monty Python's The Life of Brian". Our protagonists speak in current slang while dressed in long fur tunics and sandals. At first, the pace is slow and the script resorts to excremental jokes for laugh and fails. For me the film picks up after Zed and Oh witness Cain murder his brother, and they run away along with Cain. The story made some sense, after Cain betrays our naive heroes, and they face the consequences of their clumsiness that made them get expelled from their tribe.

The story makes fun at the harsh civility of biblical times with jokes about circumcision, castrations and sodomy. "Year One" maintains its existential context, as our main characters question the existence of God and faith in the fellow men. However this spiritual theme does not produce any effect, as the story tries hard to be funny. To gain our interest in this story, expect a "ladies in distress" plot, where most of the jokes are effective.


Michael Cera is funny as the "sort of effeminate but straight" dude. Jack Black does not really bring anything new to the table in this film. He plays the wannabe smart-ass, rebel type guy from "The School of Rock", sans the Heavy Metal fanatism.

I would recomend you skip this one, and wait for its DVD release, so you can rent it for $3.99 on a rainy Sunday night when there's nothing better on TV.