MACGRUBER Post Release

Great news. Will now be seeing it this weekend.

That's...surprising to hear! But exciting.

The laughs are really big in this one. I liked the first twenty minutes most, partly because you worry for a bit if the film's going to run out of gas (it doesn't), but also because that's where the most knowing jokes are about these sorts of films (Ryan Phillipe reciting MacGruber's career is such a perfect gag). After that the film becomes more of a collection of scatter-shot scatological gags, but most hit, and the ending wraps it up perfectly.

If I may interject, I didn't like this very much, and thought it went for the easiest possible gags throughout. I will grant that the last fifteen minutes almost make it worth it. But to expect anything but a middlebrow time-wasting lark is probably a bad idea.

That's great to hear, I was holding out hope for this ever since I saw the redband trailer. Plus Will Forte seems like nice guy, so hopefully this does well.

Been looking forward to this since I read the script online. Glad to hear that it worked onscreen, as some of the stuff (celery gag, etc.) in the script, though funny, seemed as if they would be difficult to milk to their full potential. Very cool news.

It's a lot of fun. And I thought Wiig, though maybe underused, was a highlight. Kilmer remains great. Hope people get out to see it this weekend.

great review, always love the tag-teams.

I was borderline on seeing it myself but all the positive reviews might push me to catch the late show tomorrow.

The license plate running gag is glorious.

I've never seen MacGruber but I'm glad there's another good comedy coming down the chutes, and so glad to hear Kilmer's nailed another one. Also so glad to see the tag team format make an appearance. I hope you guys use it a lot more often, especially for comedies. In fact if you guys don't do Your Highness like this I'm going to cry. (Although I could be long dead by the time the retarded release date rolls around for that one so maybe I won't stock up on tissues just yet.)

I've been waiting to see this for awhile, mostly because I love Hot Rod so much. Glad to hear it's fun. I'll check it out tonight.

Jorma Taccone is involved? Kristen Wiig is underused? I'm sold.

I saw this because of the positive review here and I thought it was hilarious. It's just laugh after laugh. Almost everything hits. The throat rippings didn't hurt.

Jesus Christ, I don't recall a moment during the film when I wasn't laughing. Not a fan of SNL nowadays. But Forte's work on Tim and Eric along with the good buzz sold my ticket.

See this.

Mother of god this film is good? I just might see this.

Lots of fun. Laughed out loud consistently. They did a good job of captured that mid-80's Simpson/Bruckheimer look with the backlighting and slo-mo.

I love the brief cameo by Kilmer's Real Genius hair, not to mention his excessive demise.

My only complaint: the Senator gets away! Sequel!

Loved it.

I have no loyalty to the not even very funny before they ran it into the ground SNL skit, but Forte nails this jackass. Dre's right, there are big laughs in here, and jesus christ I don't think I can ever watch another cinematic love scene with a straight face again.

I guess for the purposes of disclosure I should note my low standards, I even am part of the cult of Night at the Roxbury, but this is the real deal funny. I won't have to recommend this one under my breath at all.

So once again Chud's sense of comedy seems to be at 45 degrees from most of the other critics. 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, though some of the people who liked it, REALLY liked it. As always with movies like this, I have to wonder whether the critics reviewed the movie they were expecting rather than the movie they actually got.

Or else whether the Chud guys are wrong, but that's CRAZY TALK.

Seriously, though, I was actually not surprised to hear this was good. All through the trash-talking I thought, "Yeah, but I like Will Forte and the Lonely Island guys are pretty funny..."

Did anyone else catch that everyone on MacGruber's first team was a WWE superstar? That made me chuckle.

And the sex scenes were glorious. The change from the cheesy 80's music to the grunting and lame dirty talk cracked my shit up.

Agreed. I love the moment when Piper finds MacGruber's note pad and flips through it.

I caught it at SXSW and loved it. I think that the stink of previous SNL movies has people staying far away, which is a shame really.

Well, looks like I gotta check this out on June 18. I'll be in the mood for it, with my course ending the day before.

My friend and I used to watch wrestling religiously and we were geeking out to an embarrassing degree. Chris Jericho (the first one) was actually pretty funny.

Just talking to Hunter on Facebook, I forgot about the car stereo running gag. He even made Vicki carry it into the diner. If this bombs, mark my words, the next great cult comedy.

I can't stress enough how much this works outside of giving one shit about any modern SNL.

While I laughed my ass off in the theater, I think "MacGruber" will play even better on DVD or blu-rays at parties or gatherings featuring alcohol or other controlled substances. It will definitely be the next great cult comedy.

It can't possibly maintain the height of the licende plate gag - the notebook - but it's consistently funny and manages to not run out of gas in the finale, so I loved it. I kinda wanna see it again.

Like NOW.

Gotta say I was a little dissapointed. There were parts that I laughed, the whole van blowing up the team of badasses and the license plate gag were great (loved the payoff at the cemetary). The running gag of the car stereo was pretty good too.

But damned if overall the whole thing fell flat.

I was a lot disappointed. Only three laughs for me: Forte with his pants off in the office, the notebook, and Phillipe kicking the car after the human-shield bit. Wiig was wasted.

There were maybe five other people at my show. I'm sure a crowd would have helped.

Great. All of it. I loved it. There were so many hilarious gags that I was laughing throughout but the highlight had to be the back-to-back sex scenes. I was dying.

I thought the movie was enjoyable and actually well made, all things considered. I felt the screenplay was lazy, though. Kristen Wiig's character, especially, felt like a dumping ground for excess jokes. The performances totally saved it, though. Val Kilmer was fantastic.

"Maybe because I'm not a retard who blows up his own dudes." Classic.

I loved the payoff of "Your all wet!"

I disagree; Forte's shining moments on SNL seem built around characters that go to almost Andy Kaufmann-type places of discomfort for the audience -"Fly High Duluth", Jeff Montgomery*, the creepy guy whose wedding toast was built around "our nation's great mistake with this Obama", and sketch after sketch featuring the open-mouthed kissing of other dudes - almost begging the audience to hate them, and I was glad to see that quality was definitely front and center here.

I loved how they completely embraced the R rating - it's like they knew the raunch landed them in R territory, so they went crazy with with the graveyard ghost sex and throat ripping scenes.

*Never happen, but I'd watch the hell out of a film version of the SNL sketch where Jeff Montgomery goes door to door on Halloween to trick or treat/tell his neighbors he's a registered sex offender. It'd be like a fucked up version of The Swimmer.

Forte's great with physical comedy too. I don't think any other current SNL cast member can pull off Forte's straight-faced goofiness when he's the dancing around in the motivational basketball coach skits.

I'm just glad the Tag Team Reviews are back!

Phil's right, by the way. That's Forte's, uh, I won't do it, but that's his thing, the juxtaposition of his apple pie look and the creepy shit that comes out of his mouth. It's been at least three happy years since I've tried to watch an SNL ep all the way through, but when I was watching, Forte was one of the few to make me laugh consistently. Now, like with Wiig, I'm more aware of his film work, and I'm happy as shit that he was given this starring turn. The movie might not be setting the box office on fire, but I find it hard to believe that this movie won't get these talented people more work.

So fucking funny. The constant undermining of the 'bad-ass' 80's music montages by briefly cutting to his car and the smooth rock never got tired for me. A lot of replay value in this, to be sure. Also, Maya Rudolph's psyche-out objection at the end killed me.

I loved the quick shot in the opening credits of Macgruber playing the saxophone. That one shot instantly made the movie for me and set the tone perfectly. I also love that Macgruber is actually very capable of ripping throats, and that's the one thing he's not inept at. And that quick flashback of Cunth and Macgruber in college while he relayed their history destroyed me. I think this was a great comedy, and it's a shame its doing so poorly at the box office.

I thought the same thing, great way to start the movie off. Dug the hell out of this.

Out of curiosity, how do you do a TAG TEAM REVIEW? Do you guys talk, record it, and edit later? Or do you each send a paragraph or two, and then let the other reply?

Not a big deal, I'm just curious

The movie got plenty of laughs from me, but I did think it was sporadic. It did help that there was a guy and his wife not too far from me that pretty much guffawed at the entire movie for the most part. Their laughter was contagious I think. It helped my enjoyment of the movie, that's for sure.

Glad to get in on the bottom floor on this one as I usually miss gems like this. The sex scene killed me and the little gags were prefect. The car radio bit was a great touch.

Kilmer really has let himself go. Funny as hell though.

The scene where Macgruber explains the roots of his rivalry with Cunth may be the funniest thing I have seen in years. By the time he mentioned the pregnancy, I completely lost it. The notepad scene is amazing as well.

Another great thing - the brief flashback featuring Kilmer in his Chris Knight outfit and wig.

My favorite scene of the movie. "She was pregnant with his child, so of course I told her to terminate."

I knew going in this wouldn't do well. I was the only person in the theater until about 3 minutes before it started when some stragglers came in.

This was destined for greatness when Kilmer was in his Real Genius hair-do in the flashback.

"Can I take your jacket"
"No Thanks"
"Can I take your car stereo?"
"Nice Try"

I was actually really looking forward to this, and it exceeded my expectations, I had a grin on my face for almost the entire run time. Too bad that it bombed, but I'll feel like one of the cool kids until the movie hits dvd in 3 or 4 months. Oh well, Grubes seems to be taking the box office in stride: http://twitter.com/grubes69

It's kind of hard for a film to "bomb" when it was only made for $10 million.

I don't know if that's true. But if it is, they accomplished the impossible.

Just got back from the last showing of the day. Theater was barely attended. Monday night, after all. I laughed pretty hard and frequently. I actually hadn't seen any trailers or TV spots for the film, so every joke felt relatively fresh.

For some reason, the first time Wiig respond to a question in sing-song made me guffaw. She just plays it so straight. And it's not even something that is referred to much.

The first sex scene was funny. Then Maya Rudolph shows up and I died when they started to get their love-making going. Her moans working like clockwork with Forte's grunts had me laughing pretty hard.

As I tend to do way too often, I went in expecting too much because Devin was pleasantly surprised that it was much better than he thought it'd be. I went in thinking it'd be another Hot Rod. It's more like another Harold and Kumar 2. "This is pretty funny but forgettable." Fun movie, but I have no hard feelings about this one bombing.

Wiig is the best part.