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Tenacious D: Pick of Destiny [review]
Nov. 20th, 2006 10:37 amAt some point in the last few years, Jack Black and Kyle Gass sat down to watch Spinal Tap, Bill & Ted, and Waynes World. When this marathon had ended, they turned to each other.
"Whoa", they said. "Those films ROCKed"
"Yeah!"
"Hey, dude. You know what would be even cooler?"
"What?"
"If we remade those films starring ourselves...but took all the jokes out"
And that's just what they did.
The plot in ROCK films is always secondary and is just something to hang the jokes on, and so the glaring omission of jokes in Pick of Destiny hits it hard. You get the feeling that every so often the scriptwriters would look at what they had and say: "Hey, what we could do here is put in a joke or two - maybe steal some from Airheads because nobody saw that anyway - or alternatively what we could do is have a lengthy shot of Jack Black puffing out his cheeks and twisting his eyebrows. Which of those would be funnier?"
They went for Jack's eyebrows. Every time.
Now, I'm as amused by a fat man puffing out his cheeks and twisting his eyebrows as anyone. If he falls over too, so much the better. But after an hour or so it it, the humour inhernet in this wears thin. No, I lie. It's worn thin by the second time it has happened, and that's within five minutes of the opening titles.
Kyle Gass has even less hope than Jack Black, because he doesn't even have funny eyebrows. He's just fat, which in itself is ripe with comical possibilities but not a single one of those is used. Instead, we get a painful scene in which he gets hit on by a bunch of 18-year old girls. Oh, guess who wrote the script?
Ah, the script. Featuring Kyle and Jack's search for the titular Pick of Destiny (a guitar plectrum made from one of Satan's teeth which will make them the ROCKingest band in history), it so fails to grab the attention that at one point I found myself questioning the theological accuracy of their depiction of the Devil.
When Bill and Ted found themselves in Hell, did I stop and wonder if it accurately depicted Dante's Inferno? No. When Wayne and Garth found a spirit mentor, did I pause to reflect on the efficacy of their depiction of the supernatural? No. Why not? Because I was laughing too much. If you're a comedy scriptwriter and three-quarters of the way into your film the audience is sitting there saying "Hang on, that doesn't make logical sense!", then you're doing your job wrong. I'm sorry, but showing Jack Black contorting his eyebrows into ever more bizarre contortions to cover this up just doesn't cut it.
Despite game cameos from a selection of the aristROCKracy (A criminally underused Meatloaf, Ronnie James Dio giving it his hammy all, and Dave Grohl as Satan himself) the entire film never gets more than turgidly mediocre. For a short film it's very slow-paced with a number of scenes padded out beyond their natural length (expecially the hilarious* Jack Black on Magic Mushrooms scene: "I'm Jack Black! On drugs! I'm fat and I fell over and look at my eyebrows! Look at my EYEBROWS! I have EYEBROWS! LOOK AT THEM GOD DAMN YOU! THEY'RE THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE FILM!").
It's a mystery to me that anyone could make ROCK not funny. It's a genre whose defining feature is pompous bombast provided by men in bright yellow spandex trousers. How can anyone get that wrong? Somehow, through the magic of Hollywood, Jack and Kyle have taken all the absurdist, childish glee, optimism and innocence which makes ROCK truly funny and sucked it out, leaving us a film about two fat middle aged men staring mediocrity and failure full in the face.
And that's just not funny.
*Lie.
"Whoa", they said. "Those films ROCKed"
"Yeah!"
"Hey, dude. You know what would be even cooler?"
"What?"
"If we remade those films starring ourselves...but took all the jokes out"
And that's just what they did.
The plot in ROCK films is always secondary and is just something to hang the jokes on, and so the glaring omission of jokes in Pick of Destiny hits it hard. You get the feeling that every so often the scriptwriters would look at what they had and say: "Hey, what we could do here is put in a joke or two - maybe steal some from Airheads because nobody saw that anyway - or alternatively what we could do is have a lengthy shot of Jack Black puffing out his cheeks and twisting his eyebrows. Which of those would be funnier?"
They went for Jack's eyebrows. Every time.
Now, I'm as amused by a fat man puffing out his cheeks and twisting his eyebrows as anyone. If he falls over too, so much the better. But after an hour or so it it, the humour inhernet in this wears thin. No, I lie. It's worn thin by the second time it has happened, and that's within five minutes of the opening titles.
Kyle Gass has even less hope than Jack Black, because he doesn't even have funny eyebrows. He's just fat, which in itself is ripe with comical possibilities but not a single one of those is used. Instead, we get a painful scene in which he gets hit on by a bunch of 18-year old girls. Oh, guess who wrote the script?
Ah, the script. Featuring Kyle and Jack's search for the titular Pick of Destiny (a guitar plectrum made from one of Satan's teeth which will make them the ROCKingest band in history), it so fails to grab the attention that at one point I found myself questioning the theological accuracy of their depiction of the Devil.
When Bill and Ted found themselves in Hell, did I stop and wonder if it accurately depicted Dante's Inferno? No. When Wayne and Garth found a spirit mentor, did I pause to reflect on the efficacy of their depiction of the supernatural? No. Why not? Because I was laughing too much. If you're a comedy scriptwriter and three-quarters of the way into your film the audience is sitting there saying "Hang on, that doesn't make logical sense!", then you're doing your job wrong. I'm sorry, but showing Jack Black contorting his eyebrows into ever more bizarre contortions to cover this up just doesn't cut it.
Despite game cameos from a selection of the aristROCKracy (A criminally underused Meatloaf, Ronnie James Dio giving it his hammy all, and Dave Grohl as Satan himself) the entire film never gets more than turgidly mediocre. For a short film it's very slow-paced with a number of scenes padded out beyond their natural length (expecially the hilarious* Jack Black on Magic Mushrooms scene: "I'm Jack Black! On drugs! I'm fat and I fell over and look at my eyebrows! Look at my EYEBROWS! I have EYEBROWS! LOOK AT THEM GOD DAMN YOU! THEY'RE THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE FILM!").
It's a mystery to me that anyone could make ROCK not funny. It's a genre whose defining feature is pompous bombast provided by men in bright yellow spandex trousers. How can anyone get that wrong? Somehow, through the magic of Hollywood, Jack and Kyle have taken all the absurdist, childish glee, optimism and innocence which makes ROCK truly funny and sucked it out, leaving us a film about two fat middle aged men staring mediocrity and failure full in the face.
And that's just not funny.
*Lie.
