7.1/10
For the longest time, SNL-inspired movies have led to a rise in heart attacks and gonorrhea. Sure, we can tip our hats to Wayne's World and possibly even Ladies Man (haha, just kidding), but 9 times out of 10, SNL movies are pure stinkers. So with such a long history of shit-storm scripts, it doesn't really make sense how this movie is any good, considering that it comes from a 30 second sketch that parodies MacGyver. Yet somehow Will Forte leading as a thick-haired and vest-wearin' MacGruber alongside his backing team, consisting of Kristen Wiig and Ryan Philippe, works on levels that are perplexing and often incredibly juvenile.
MacGruber is by no means a movie that deserves credit for being serious or even in good taste. It is the product of a childish mind with adult instincts, and thankfully, the grown-up side of the equation knows how to set a path of glory. The humor in the movie centers around absurdity and raunchiness, yet it doesn't stray into the utterly abysmal Scary Movie territory. Instead it walks the fine line between clever and well-suited parody, and just plain glue-eating and knee-slapping. But what is the parody? Well, mainly 80s action movies. For example, within the first minutes of the opening credits, after a long title sequence of words and shapes, we finally see MacGruber wailing on a saxophone, setting the tone for a movie that pokes fun at many action movie cliches -- this being the overbearing music that sets the emotional atmosphere.
The main plot of the movie centers around MacGruber tracking evil mastermind Dieter Von Cunth, (hmm, guess what that might sound like) played by Val Kilmer, who has gotten hands on a very large nuclear weapon. Of course, in a movie that focuses more on the journey and less of the destination, this overarching plot is highly unimportant to what occurs mainly throughout the movie. Even though Cunth is the main villain, MacGruber and co. are often getting into their own mischief along the way to reaching Cunth.
Most of the humor comes from either shock value or randomness. There is a pretty significant plot point that involves celery stalks and assholes, which creates a diversion necessary to gain important information about Cunth. Also, MacGruber's relationship to Cunth is a fairly hilarious and an obvious poke at the overly convoluted and super-serious back-stories that archrivals have in action movies. And towards the end of the movie, which has been pretty explosion-laden throughout, the explosions gain intensity because the growling of tigers are dubbed over them slightly enough to where you question whether or not a tiger growls as a car explodes, and then soon you realize that yes it does.
Maybe one of the greatest parts of the movie is the end, which I won't spoil because it is absolutely ridiculous. And thinking about the movie as a whole, it is something that is just absolutely ridiculous -- from MacGruber having sex with a ghost to asking Ryan Phillipe in a moment of utmost desperation "What do you want me to fuck?" in a military office. Yet somehow the movie maintains its humor level.
And sure, MacGruber is definitely a different kind of humor, something that has sprung recently in a world of YouTube videos and online comedy. MacGruber's plot and character interaction occurs in a world that is willing to except absurdity and chaos as a means to provide humor rather than building on pre-existing notions about reality. Just like a YouTube video, the movie thinks on its feet -- maybe not in terms of actual overwrought cleverness, but sheer economy. It doesn't settle for buildup and release, or often does not work with calling back on previously mentioned in-jokes. Instead it pulls a continuous line of shock and over-the-topness inside the boundaries of acceptable. However it's done, it is worth busting a gut over.
