MacGruber

Off the bat, I should note. I don't know why they made this a movie. I traditionally hate movies that take characters or jokes from SNL sketches. They're sketches, they're supposed to really only be 5 or so minutes and then they should be done. To expand it into a 90 minute movie is ridiculous. But everyone said I should check this one out so I thought I'd take it off the list.

 MacGruber is based off a sketch from SNL starring Will Forte as the titular MacGruber. Obviously a spoof of MacGyer, MacGruber is a combat weary government agent who saves America with the power of making "life saving inventions out of house hold materials".

At the start of the movie, MacGruber is in retirement after the sudden murder of his wife (played by Maya Rudolph). A generic Army Colonel (played by Powers Booth) sends him on a mission to expose an Arms dealer for his evil plot against America, and retrieve the nuclear warhead they stole before its used against the United States. MacGruber initially refuses but decides its the best way to get revenge as this arms dealer named Dieter Von Cunth (played masterfully by Val Kilmer) murdered MacGruber's wife.

MacGruber needs to assemble a team that includes a green new Lieutenant played by Ryan Phillipe and a blonde by the name of Vicky (played by Kristen Wiig) to stop Cunth and save the world.

If you can't tell already, the movie leans pretty heavily into stereotypical action movie tropes... like really heavily.

I can see how people might just write this movie off as bad. On face value, it's just a super generic comedy action film. But the genericness of the movie is kind of why it's brilliant. The movie leans so heavily into the ridiculousness and stakes that it's poking fun at the very tropes its using. On top of that, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, EVERYONE is taking is soooooooooooooo seriously to the point of intense parody. If you understand that MacGruber is making fun of every since formula from every single action movie ever made, it's pretty damn funny.

I think the best way to describe this movie is that it is a live-action Team America World Police. The heroes are so masculine, the action is always at 100%, and the dead pan seriousness makes it even funnier.

And this is really well performed by Will Forte... for the most part.

Like the rest of the movie, Will Forte recognizes how serious he's supposed to take the movie to make us laugh. He comes off as this super legendary bad ass, but the reality is that MacGruber is just bad at his job in all aspects. He literally fails his way to success the entire movie and it's funny a lot of the time... but not all the time.

I think his strongest moments are when he holds that parody-level seriousness with the character. It's at these moments that he says really funny things and its perpetually met with almost the same levels of seriousness by everyone (minus Ryan Phillipe who is the only somewhat accessible relatable person in the movie. I'm not saying he's good, but he's just not as exciting and is more of a vehicle for the audience to reach the levels of absurdity Forte and Wiig are bringing).

The movie loses some steam when Forte breaks that paper thin facade results into a man baby for like no reason. He brings his voice up to a high pitch baby voice and while it made me chuck sometimes, it was never as good as when they were doing really deep parody.

Kristin Wiig plays the most stereotypical female leading character in this movie. I get what they're doing with her, I get that she can't be too interesting because that's not what females in action movies are, or at least what they were in the 80's.

That being said, she's not very funny in this movie.

 It's funny to think that this movie came out a year before Bridesmaids and just missed the line of movies where Wiig's comedic talents, I think were finally unlocked. She's also a really great straight actress on an unrelated note. But when she's just playing a straight up blank slate like she is in this movie, no matter if its for the sake of parody, she's not funny. Wiig in my opinion is the best when she's playing a relatively straight character to dramatic role, or she's playing a straight up caricature, and here, she's written as a boring female lead in an action movie. She's a lot better than this movie gives her credit for. I've noticed that Wiig has been miscast before (See Masterminds), and in MacGruber, she's neither given the opportunity to really act or be funny. So she's just meh.

Val Kilmer's in this movie and it's hilarious.

I think the reason this cameo goes so under appreciated is because the movie flopped at the box office and it hasn't really been appreciated that much. If this movie came out today, I'm not only better it would be a lot more popular, this cameo would be Keaun Reeves levels of pop culture appreciation.

But I even challenge that notion because the truth is, the movie is okay.

I get why this movie has kind of gotten a cult classic status, but like most cult classics, I don't really see it. This movie is definitely better than you'd think it would be. And one thing I can really applaud it for was that it breached out more than just the single joke the sketch originally pulled. This movie could have easily been 90 minutes of the same MacGruber sketch from SNL over and over again, which even in the SNL episodes where it would show up periodically throughout the episode, it got pretty old. But instead it decided to be an over the top, live action Team America World Police film. And there were parts that got some pretty legitimate laughs from me.

But the truth is, I'm not gonna remember this movie probably by tomorrow. This movie does not need a sequel because all of these actors are doing much better things. It's a fun little 90 minute romp with some pretty good laughs, leave it be.

But those are my thoughts on MacGruber. What do you think? Do you think it's better than most people think it is? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!