MacGruber

MACGRUBER!
The SNL Sketch got a movie
MACGRUBER!
Was out in theaters for about a week
MACGRUBER!
Was pretty funny but not as funny as I was led to hope
MACGRUBER! MACGRUUUUUBEEEERRRRR!

In MacGruber, SNL vet Will Forte stars in the title role, a bomb-diffusing, mulleted MacGyver knockoff with deep mental issues. The movie goes much further than just the MacGyver formula, it parodies super violent 80's action movies like Rambo and Commando.

MacGruber is definitely a "guy movie". It has a lot of pretty dumb jokes in it that made me laugh but made my wife roll her eyes. It's the kind of movie that mines a lot of comedy out of naming the villain (Val Kilmer) "Dieter von Kunth".

Will Forte is pretty awesome as MacGruber, but only if Will Forte is your cup of tea. I find his brand of weirdness hilarious, but I can see how others might not. Unlike most comedies of this type, where the hero is kind of eccentric, and all the rest of the characters are there to react to his craziness but eventually come around and be endeared by him (see: Austin Powers, most Adam Sandler movies), MacGruber seems to be genuinely and dangerously insane. Forte takes jokes as far as he can possibly take them, often to uncomfortable levels, and giving his characters any kind of moral boundary would work against him.

Rounding out the cast, Kristen Wiig stars as his love interest Vicki St. Elmo, and Ryan Phillippe plays the straight-laced military guy that "loose cannon" MacGruber has friction with. It was nice to see the straight man role filled by a guy this time. In most comedies (see above examples) the woman gets nothing to do but roll her eyes and act appalled by the hero's behavior before she inexplicably falls in love with him. Wiig gets all sorts of weird stuff to do, mostly revolving around MacGruber callously putting her into dangerous situations.

There are a lot of funny moments in the first hour, but the comedy sags a bit throughout. I was hoping to laugh a lot more. Luckily, the last half hour makes up for that. The third act is pretty non stop funny with lots of insane, over-the-top, action movie violence.

I would recommend MacGruber, but it's not for everyone. If you have a weird sense of humor and a tolerance for the low-brow, I think you will like it a great deal. I didn't think it was as funny as Will Forte's previous film, The Brothers Solomon, which was one of my favorite comedies of the last decade, but it makes a pretty good companion to it.