Euro Trash (But in a Good Way)

Rating: 6/10 (7 July 2020)

GRADE: C+
THIS FILM IS MILDLY RECOMMENDED.
IN BRIEF: Entertaining but light-weight comedy about dreaming your dream.
JIM'S REVIEW: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is a very long title for a very long movie. The film is a goofy and slight satirical comedy. Its easy target is an international song competition that promotes pop ditties representing various countries with lavish staging, pyrotechnic effects, and garish costumes. Call it a underdog story or an amusing Rocky rewrite with purposely bad music.
Written by Andrew Steele and one of its stars, comedian Will Ferrell, the film tells its Icelandic tale of a middle age loser named Lars Erickssong whose dream it is to win the Eurovision contest, the musical equivalent of a vocal Olympics Game. His singing partner is Sigrit EricksdÃ³ttir (a very winning Rachel McAdams), who, for some unknown reason, idolizes her bandmate. Their pairing is an imbalance, not only script-wise but as an acting team.
The movie is silly fun, although, Mr. Ferrell is miscast in his own script. The actor does have some nice sight gags and pratfalls, but most of the time he belabors his character and lets his performance go off kilter. He plays Lars as if he is still performing on a SNL skit. There is no real chemistry or depth of character here and it's hard to believe his "middle age status". (He is a bit long in the walrus tusk for this role.) In all honesty, his performance simply lacks the light comedic charm needed to pull off this part and he weighs down all the joyous buffoonery from others in the cast. The miscasting is very obvious as he acts opposite the talented Ms. McAdams, who has a natural flair for comedy. She is a perfect fit, almost a 10. Also providing humorous moments are Pierce Brosnan as Lar's disapproving father and Dan Stevens as the narcissistic Russian crooner.
Actually, the best parts of the movie are the snippets of the half-baked musical numbers. These fleeting moments are on-target spoofs with the typically over-produced staging and sexualized performances gyrating in full satirical view. Highlighting these scenes would have made a much funnier film. The filmmakers should have considered making this intriguing concept as a mockamentary instead of the formulaic rom/com that it is. If they had focused more on the outrageousness of the competition and shown the musical entries in their entirety, leaving out much of the predictable story, the movie would have been more laugh-out-loud funny than merely diverting fodder.
Directed by tongue-in-cheek ill reverence by David Dobkin, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga barely makes the semi-finals.