I sure am getting desperate for material to review when it
comes to movies. How else would it
explain me reviewing this?
Actually fairly likely either way. I have a soft spot for Will Ferrell. He made some of my favorite comedies of the
2000s from Anchorman to Step Brothers to Elf, the guy has made so many movies I
like. I was bound to give this a shot one
way or another just due to Will Ferrell’s involvement. Also I like Rachel McAdams. She’s an actress who should be a lot bigger
of a star than she actually is. I mean
she was pegged as one of the breakout stars from 2004’s timeless teen classic
Mean Girls. And she never really blew up
as a huge box office draw that so many others pegged her out to be. She ended up being even more selective with
her projects and I respect her for that.
And speaking of “box office draws”; even if we weren’t in
the middle of a pandemic, I do have a lot to say about the comedy genre as of
late. It’s on the decline. I don’t know if it is due to the genre
running out of ideas, less returns at the box office, or most of the big
comedians of the last ten years trying to mature in their careers with more
serious turns or just stepping away from the limelight. We don’t have as many big name draws for the
genre anymore. So Will Ferrell is at an
interesting point in his career as I can honestly say that Will Ferrell might
be one of the last true comedy focused box office draws. I’m not saying other people can’t make
comedies successful in this day and age, but when it comes to gaining viewers
solely on name involvement, it’s basically come down to Will Ferrell and Adam
Sandler in regards to who can still pull in a large audience.
So how was the new Netflix comedy sweeping the Netflix Top 10? Well it is perfectly…okay. Yeah it was okay. I mean I wasn’t wowed or anything. Honestly I thought it ran way too long and
should have cut out a good thirty minutes or so. But I got a couple good laughs out of this. Which is really saying something in this day
and age where true comedies are on the decline in popularity.
The positives I have to say about this are the acting. The chemistry between Will Ferrell and Rachel
McAdams is some of the best I’ve seen in a movie this year. Granted, I haven’t seen as many movies as I
normally have this year due to the ongoing pandemic bringing the cinema
landscape to a screeching halt, but I would definitely like to see these two
work off each other again in the near future.
It kind of reminds me of how great the chemistry is between Adam Sandler
and Drew Barrymore. They just naturally
play off each other very well. Whenever
Will Ferrell goes over the top in terms of his character he has to portray,
Rachel McAdams goes just as over the top to make just the most charming of
friendships/relationships….slight spoiler, but come on. Let’s not act surprised that these two end up
together. It was predictable from the
trailers and it was predictable within the first few minutes.
Also this movie does Eurovision the justice it deserves. For years now, I’ve dreamed of going to
Eurovision after watching the show online for the last couple of years. That’s what happens when you follow the music
industry as closely as I do and it’s become a recent goal of mine to go see the
competition. The original musical
numbers that are performed with this show in mind are great. The cover songs are really good as well. There are tons of Eurovision performers of
past and present that appear throughout the movie and perform some of their
previous songs from the series in the movie as well. Outsiders of the Eurovision series would
probably assume that there are some segments that will be similar to Pitch
Perfect and I’ll be honest, there are moments where I can see that argument. There is one giant group number that is very
similar to the Pitch Perfect series’s riff off and the scene goes on for like
ten to fifteen minutes. But outside of
that, the similarities are there at times, but I feel like the homage to
Eurovision is still there. Hell the
board who hosts the competition recently gave the movie its seal of approval as
to how it portrayed the actual competition.
So that’s saying something positive, right?
The main negative I have in regards to this movie is that run
time I mentioned previously. This movie
is a little over two hours long. Which
is very long for comedies in this day and age.
I’m not against longer runtime comedies as long as they have enough
material to justify it being that long.
And honestly, I would cut out at least a half-hour worth of material. Whether it be shortening certain scenes like “the
riff-off” I mentioned earlier or just completely cut out a couple other scenes
here and there that drive this movie to a grinding halt of comedic momentum. The director of this movie is David Dobkin,
who previously directed one of my favorite comedies of 2005, The Wedding
Crashers. While not necessarily a bad
director, David Dobkin does have the same problem in a majority of the movies I’ve
seen from him. They are much longer than
they have any right to be. He still
makes solid movies, but he could really benefit from running through the
editing room a few more times.
And then there is the screenplay. As mentioned above, plenty of scenes could
have been cut, but even without mentioning that problem anymore, most of this
movie is fairly predictable. When
certain characters get introduced, you can automatically pinpoint exactly what
is going to happen with their interactions with our main characters. And while none of these characters are exactly
badly performed persay. Dan Stevens and Pierce Brosnan in particular both steal
their fair share of scenes with their over the top performances; while Demi
Lovato is in the movie for a short amount of time as a rival Icelandic
performer showing that she still knows how to act despite not really acting
anymore. But these interactions with our
main characters are so predictable that I feel like the writers could have done
so much more to make them more compelling.
Overall though, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire
Saga (there’s a reason I haven’t listed this movie title up until now, it’s a
mouthful) is a perfectly okay comedy in a day and age where mainstream comedies
are on the decline. Does it breathe new
life into a genre that I wish was more publically prominent again? No.
But I’m glad I sat through it. It
gave me my fair share of laughs, which serotonin is always welcome in the year
that is 2020. I just wish it was so much
shorter and wasn’t nearly as predictable as it ended up becoming.
Final Grade: C+
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