I get it, and it's still not funny

Rating: 1/10 (15 April 2014)

I'm a fan of Will Ferrell, and I like big dumb comedies like "Dumb and Dumber" and "Tommy Boy". And this turkey was sure dumb...but not funny. I didn't laugh once or even crack a smile for almost 30 minutes, and then I shut it off and returned the DVD. What finally made me pull the plug on this mess was Ron's date with Corningstone (the names aren't even that funny, btw). I was ready for laughs to see how Ron was going to handle a "strictly professional" date, and seconds later we see his car parked at some sort of inspiration point, which is promising. But then Burgundy doesn't make a move on her?? And she's not upset at having been driven to a make-out spot? What was really dreadful was the dialog about "San Diego": Burgundy: "San Diego was discovered by the Germans in 1902, and they called it 'San DiAh-go', which means 'whale vagina'." I thought this was dreadful, because it lacks all plausibility. Even someone as stupid as Burgundy would know San Diego means "Saint Diego" in Spanish. Humor that is completely ungrounded in reality is not that funny to me, unless you go whole hog with absurdity like Monty Python. This movie tried to be both absurd and a little bit grounded, and it failed. The "San Di-Ahgo" bit sucked. Then, Burgundy takes Corningstone to his favorite nightclub, and he's asked to play jazz flute. At first, he can't play (plausible). Then we hear flawless flute playing, which I assumed to be a recording, because certainly someone so stupid as Burgundy can't play the jazz flute like that, right? WRONG. The scene continues with him wow-ing everyone in the nightclub with his incredible flute playing, and there's no dubbing/recording going on whatsoever. We are just to believe he is this talented. It's inconsistent with his idiotic character. The rest of the characters are cartoons, also, including Steve Carrell's "retarded" weatherman, who calls NW U.S. "The Middle East". I mean, the writing seems really ad-libbed and sloppy. McKay and Ferrell must have written this script with tunnel-vision and groupthink. 2 years later, McKay and Ferrell get it right with Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. At least that had some real laughs, because the characters were consistently stupid throughout.