Director: Jermaine Clement, Taika Waititi
Cast: Taika Waititi, Jermaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Conzalez-Macuer
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I have yet to re-watch it since the sublime television show started. So many fans of the movie have completely dismissed the television show, that I worried re-visiting it wouldn’t hold the same charms.
Did I Like It: And it does hold the same charm—if not the surprising anarchy—of that original viewing. Clement and Waititi create a comedy that would pass—if it weren’t fictional, naturally—as a pretty good documentary in its own right. They create comic personas here that will serve them infinitely well in subsequent productions.
The plot is relatively similar to at least the set up for the movie, that there is a degree of repitition. To the television show’s credit, it took those seeds and began to form likely my favorite live-action comedy series currently on the air. So, there is, I hate to say, just a slightly smaller amount of enjoyment with the film this time around. It isn’t the film’s fault; it’s more a statement that the television series may have a chance at being the first adaptation of its kind to surpass its cinematic progenitor since M*A*S*H*.*
Does that mean you should avoid watching the movie in favor of the television series? No, of course not. I think comparing any film to Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H*** (1970) is probably a pretty sterling endorsement.
*One more asterisk there is, in fact, not a typo. I’m not sure I would die on the hill of the fact that the television M*A*S*H* is better than the film. Just more indelible in the cultural consciousness.
**The asterisks are all over the place in this review. But when I realized the word-count in my word processing app counts the titles as four words instead of one, I kind of couldn’t help myself. Whatever will I do when I eventually do, review that movie, instead of this one?