I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve been a fan of “Family Guy” for as long as I can remember. I was a fan when it was canceled in 2001. I was a fan when I was probably too young to watching such a show. So even through I’ve been hearing the show’s creator’s voice for nearly 15 years, it’s still alien to me to actually see Seth MacFarlane in person. To me, he’s just a voice attached to a multitude of characters, including the titular character from his last movie, “Ted.” To see him slingin’ bullets, drinking mystic Indian concoctions and being the hero in the white hat is just ... strange. Maybe that’s why, even after all the laughter and adorable storyline, I find it hard to like “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” MacFarlane’s latest film, starring, written and directed by him.
The problem, I think, centers around perception. It’s one thing to watch a bumbling idiot be foul-mouthed and infantile in his humor when he’s animated. It’s another thing altogether to watch MacFarland stumble around the Old West, clearly out of place, and be foul-mouthed and infantile. If I wanted to see that, I could watch him host the Oscars again.
But it’s more than that. It’s more than the fact that the clean-cut, pearly-whited-toothed MacFarlane is strikingly out of place in a comedy about the Old West, or that everyone is incredibly too clean. Even the crude humor and incessant stream of curse words has its place. Really, I think it’s MacFarlane himself who’s out of place, whose role is more distracting than fulfilling, leaving us hoping maybe he’ll be shot and put out of our misery.
But hey, at the least the visuals are pretty. That should count for something, right?
But of the many ways to die in the West, which MacFarlane spends an unholy two hours repeating to us ad nauseam, a death of a thousand cuts is by far the worst. Which is what we suffer as we have to contend with far too many jokes that miss their mark or are meant for teenage boys.
Hence the premise of “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” a raunch-filled “Gunsmoke” that pits the loser hero against the uber-masculine villain (who of course is decked out in all black).
MacFarlane stars as Albert Stark, a modern-day cynic who happened to be alive in 1882 in Old Stump, Ariz. A sheep farmer by trade, Stark is pitiful in every sense of the word: terrible at his livelihood; unable to impress his vapid girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried), who then dumps him to for the stylish and moustachioed Foy (an excellent Neil Patrick Harris); and an overall wimp who constantly complains about the horrid surroundings he finds himself in. Yes, we get it: The West sucks. Move on.
But instead of coming to terms, Stark decides to matters into his ill-equipped hands: by challenging Foy to a gunfight. To say that Stark is outmatched would be kind.
And here’s where Charlize Theron enters the scene, as Anna, a veritable Annie Oakley who not only likes Albert but wants to help him become a better shot. What goes unmentioned, though, as the two become closer, is that Anna is the wife to the most notorious outlaw in all the territory, Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson), who has a penchant for jealousy and shooting people with his laser-like aim.
Along for the ride are actors known for their comedic chops, including Sarah Silverman as a prostitute/good Christian girl wanting to wait until marriage to have sex and Giovanni Ribisi as her dopey boyfriend.
And though these other great actors don’t get enough screen time, we can grateful that Theron does. Creating a greater presence in nearly every scene she shares with MacFarlane, which is many, her sense of comedic timing is spot-on and more or less saves the movie from falling flat on its butt. Credit should be given to MacFarlane for allowing this to happen, but I feel it was an act of necessity.
In the end, “A Million Ways to Die in the West” fails to live up to its self-promoted hype. With a string of one-liners constantly falling out of someone’s mouth, you’d expect some gems. And though there are some, their rarity is a shame for a truly talented man such as MacFarlane. (Have you heard the guy sing? He’s epic.) He would have been better off making a musical about a mutual hatred of the awfulness that is the Old West rather than going all Mel Brooks in “Blazing Saddles.” Because we all know we don’t need more of that.
Two gun-slingin’ stars out of five.
No comments:
Post a Comment