POISON SCOOTER

The Pick of Destiny

Sometimes movies come out and you just know you should avoid seeing them in the theater. The problem is that you wind up avoiding truly horrid movies at the same time you overlook movies that look bad, but wind up being on the good side of things. Does that make any sense? Let me further bring the point home with an example. It doesn't take a genius to realize that you are better off skipping Norbit regardless of medium, but once the DVD rolls out you might be tempted to put on the Netflix queue and eventually realize that your reason for avoiding it in the theater in the first place is the same reason you should have just avoided it completely. But then there are times like this, when you say "no way I'm paying $9 to see a Tenacious D movie" and then slap it on the Netflix queue and pop it in the DVD player on a quiet Friday night...and actually enjoy yourself.

Now I'm not suggesting that this movie was worthy of seeing in the theater, afterall it's a comedy and the big screen is only useful for action films anymore. No, what I'm trying to say is that even though the trailer made it look a bit hookey, the premise is kind of funny and not nearly as poorly executed as it could have been. Now I will say that I'm a D fan, so if you have heard some D in the past and think it's shit, you might want to shy away.

Things you can't deny about this film however:

Jack Black is charismatic and hilarious when he is let loose. (See High Fidelity.)

JB and KG are talented musicians and know how to write songs that could fit into a metal record or a musical on Broadway.

The cameos are clever. (Meatloaf, Dio, Tim Robbins and of course, Ben Stiller.)

The movie's plot is silly, but silly like Mr. Show and not silly like the umpteenth American Pie direct to DVD film. But the movie is quick, no fat on it, and the bottom line is that a comedy only works if it makes you laugh and I laughed a bunch watching these two chubby rockers ham it up for 90 minutes.

posted by Scooter @ 9:09 AM