Director: Eric Appel
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Toby Huss
Have I Seen it Before: Brand new.
Did I Like It: First of all, a note of update about experiencing streaming-only films these days. which does seem to be an ongoing odyssey for me. The film comes free to watch, but riddled with commercial breaks, and considering I had to route the playing of the film from Roku’s website on my iPad through screening mirroring onto my Apple TV, the film just stopped at several moments and then came back in. No commercials were presented at any time. Sometimes I had to refresh everything in order to get back into the film. As this free-to-watch could only be seen as an advertisement for Roku’s service, it would have gone a long way to have all the ads loaded at the front. As it stands, while I enjoyed the film, I’m way less likely to become a Roku person at the end of the process.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…
It’s been so long since we’ve been given a pure parody film that was worth a damn. The last one I can readily reach for is Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), and I’m cautiously willing to give this one a lead on even that film, especially considering Walk Hard is only slightly a parody—of music biopics, no less—and more of a mid-2000s Apatow comedy.
This might yet herald (or at least promise, and never fulfill) a return to form for the genre. The secret strength? Not the writing so much, as the jokes might repeat a bit too much for my taste. The specificity of it’s subject matter, ensuring that the formula wouldn’t seem so simple that we are doomed to be subject to an army of immitators? Possibly.
The real strength I think is Radcliffe, who has shown once again his willingness to not take his image seriously, and subject it to enthusiastic clowning. The last performer I can think of who harnessed that energy so effectively was Leslie Nielsen. If you had Daniel Radcliffe becomes the new Leslie Nielsen on your 21st century bingo card, you are a lucky one, indeed.