Director: Chris Prynoski
MPAA Rating: NR
Runtime: 85 Minutes
I was instantly intrigued when I first heard that the folks at Titmouse Inc. – the production company that brought us The Venture Bros., one of my all-time favorite animated shows – was making a feature-length film called Nerdland starring Patton Oswalt and Paul Rudd. After finding out that Andrew Kevin Walker, screenwriter of Se7en and 8MM, wrote the script, I was even more interested. Perhaps my expectations were set too high, but after seeing the film, I can safely say this is one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had at the cinema this year.
Rudd and Oswalt voice John and Elliott, two slackers living in Hollywood attempting to make a name for themselves in the fame-hungry town. After both friends get fired from their day jobs, they decide to hatch a plan to become famous by any means necessary.
After several failed attempts at cashing in on viral media by saving victims from a burning building and giving a homeless man an oversized check, the two decide infamy will be an easier route to take and begin devising another fiendish plan that involves murdering their kind old neighbor.
Everything about Nerdland feels half-baked and underdeveloped. There is no congruence to the narrative whatsoever, leaving the film feeling like a cobbled-together series of 15-minute Adult Swim shorts rather than an actual movie. The plot meanders from one unfunny segment to the next, lazily throwing in gross-out gags and childish humor that never once brought me to laughter but instead evoked great amounts of disappointment in the shoddy material with which these great comedians had to work.
Nerdland aims to satirize the social-media-obsessed world we live in, but at this point, these ruminations feel dated and bring nothing new or interesting to the table. Even other animated shows like Bojack Horseman tackle this subject in a much deeper, more thought-provoking way and is loads funnier.
One thing I did like in Nerdland, however, was the animation from Titmouse. Walker was originally developing the script to be live-action and, at one point, David Fincher was attached to direct, but after years of trying to get financing he decided to go the animation route, which turned out pretty well. The backgrounds have a hand-painted, watercolor look to the them, and the characters, while reminiscent of Venture Bros. and Metalocalypse, are more stylized and detailed.
Nerdland feels like it would have been better suited as an Adult Swim series where more time could have been spent developing these characters and the overarching plot, both of which are seriously lacking in this feature. It pains me to say this, due to my admiration for nearly everyone involved, but this mess of a film gets a hard pass.
