Reviews

Review: Year One

Not everything Judd Apatow touches is gold.

By TOM MEEK | June 23, 2009

1.0 Stars

VIDEO: The trailer for Year One

Not everything Judd Apatow touches is gold. Whether he's overextended or just overexposed, it's a steep drop from Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin to this miscue (which he produced) about a pair of Neolithic dolts who stumble out of the woods and end up in Biblical Sodom. Mel Brooks and the lads from Monty Python stormed through this territory with fierce farce. Here there's little farce, just Jack Black, Juno refugee Michael Cera, and a fusillade of flaccid dick jokes (no frontal nudity, thank you), homo-erotic floundering, and farts. Even the grand orgy fails to get the juices flowing. It seems director Harold Ramis and the team of writers just dropped the comedic duo into "hilarious" situations sans any wit. In the one inspired turn, a duplicitous Cain (David Cross) shows up, and even then the murder of his brother Abel (Paul Rudd on hand for 20 seconds) won't slay any audiences.

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