Film review: Year One

Published on Thursday 2 July 2009 18:57

YEAR ONE (12A) * DIRECTED BY: HAROLD RAMIS STARRING: JACK BLACK, MICHAEL CERA, DAVID CROSS, OLIVIA WILDE

BECAUSE he co-wrote and starred in Ghostbusters and directed the perfect Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis needn't sweat about his place in the annals of Hollywood comedy history. Nevertheless, it's still sad to see him crank out a joke-free travesty such as Year One, especially since it also bears the fingerprints of producer Judd Apatow, whose name, while no longer an absolute guarantee of quality, usually suggests at least a few big laughs will be forthcoming. Sadly that's not the case here. Generating very little chemistry, Jack Black and Michael Cera pair up as, respectively, a hunter and a gatherer cast out from their village into an Old Testament wilderness where they must band together to avoid being circumcised, sodomised and generally brutalised by all manner of biblical figures, high priests and Roman centurions.

Stumbling into territory already well satirised by Monty Python's Life of Brian and then failing to offer up anything new, Year One is little more than a series of rubbish sketch-show-style skits strung together by a vague plot in which Black believes himself to be the chosen one and Cera tries desperately to lose his virginity to the girl he loves.