Director: Seth MacFarlane
MPAA Rating: R
Since Family Guy debuted in 1999, creator Seth MacFarlane has made a name for himself by providing edgy, irreverent, and hilarious comedy. The episodes were endlessly quotable and featured cutaway gags that were second to none. Last year, when MacFarlane made the transition to live action filmmaking with Ted, many were skeptical if this humor would translate to the big screen. Fortunately it did, and Ted was one of the top grossing films of last summer. This summer MacFarlane is back with A Million Ways to Die in the West, a comedic western that does bring a few laughs, but causes many more yawns.
MacFarlane stars as Albert, a lovable but cowardly sheep farmer who gets dumped by his girlfriend, Louise, played by Amanda Seyfried. After a mysterious new woman rolls into town (Charlize Theron) she takes Albert under her wing and teaches him to shoot and gives him the confidence he needs to make it in this harsh world.
Of course, the two fall in love, but as it turns out, she’s married to one of the roughest, toughest, and nastiest bandits in the frontier, played by Liam Neeson. After he finds out Albert is smooching on his lady more trouble brews for our friendly sheep farmer.
The cast is rounded out by the incomparable Giovanni Ribisi playing Albert’s best friend, Sarah Silverman playing the adorable but raunchy prostitute, and Neil Patrick Harris playing Louise’s new beau and owner of the local moustachery. With a cast this great not including the slew of cameos, what could go wrong right? Too bad none of these great actors had much of anything to work with in the way of character development. Everyone feels completely flat and underused. The script resorts to replaying the same jokes over and over about each character- hey Sarah Silverman talks about nasty sex things in a cute voice and Giovanni Ribisi is a sweetly retarded Christian who wants to get laid, we get it. While each character did provide a few solid laughs (Ribisi’s incredible dancing from Ted makes a triumphant return) I couldn’t help but think about all the missed opportunities.
Anytime the jokes were poised on life in the West, it worked. Watching people get killed in ridiculous ways, having blue jays treat wounds, and not smile for photos was incredibly funny. There’s just so few of these jokes compared to scene after scene of dull plot progression and sentiment that isn’t earned. How can we have a genuine moment between two characters when the prior sequence involved someone having explosive diarrhea in a man’s hat?
A Million Ways to Die in the West is a movie that hits the right notes a few times but veers away from being a truly good comedy anytime it starts building momentum. The entire film feels like such a slog I couldn’t believe how long it seemed. This is most likely due to a lackluster plot that is not only predictable, but also proves to be bloated and uninteresting.
Even the die-hard MacFarlane fans and those that want copious amounts of dick and farts jokes (and there are plenty) will have a hard time latching onto this one. The fact that so many talented people are involved and that some of the concepts are genuinely funny makes it even tougher to recommend. It’s like there’s a germ of a great comedy here, but the underdeveloped script and sloppy editing cause it to be nothing more than a decent attempt at a new Blazing Saddles that just doesn’t work.
