What happened, Will?

Rating: 1/10 (5 August 2006)

So far I've liked just about every Will Ferrel movie thats come out, or at least liked how he acted in the role. But this has got to be one of the most brain-dead movies I have seen in a long time.
Yes, there were some funny spots but for 95% of the movie I had a completely straight face. Let's start at the beginning (which is probably the funniest part of the movie). It begins out very cliché but in a humorous, joking way. Both of the main characters are both mentally retarded (get used to this, because you will later realize that literally every single character in the entire movie is a moron). Ricky Bobby has a beautiful wife, a jealous friend eager to take his place, and a nerdy-yet attractive assistant with a new team boss that wants Ricky off his team. You quickly see the cookie cutter characters fall into an extremely predictable plot. It's so obviously cliché that they were probably kidding, but I didn't find the joke very funny. For the most part the characters spit one-liner jokes that often fall flat, but are a few times funny. It seemed like if the writers couldn't think of any more one-liners, they resorted to having will Ferrel or his co-star act in some neurotic, mentally retarded fashion to get some cheap laughs. They even resorted to not once, but two times just showing will Ferrel running around in his underwear trying to put out invisible fire. In my opinion Will Ferrell can be MUCH funnier than this low-level humor. But enough of talking about the regurgitated garbage and formulaic movie elements.
The most disturbing part of the movie was the fascination with homosexuality. I didn't have a problem with this because I find being gay immoral OR that making fun of gay people is wrong. Homosexuality is a slippery slope to make jokes on(and it COULD have be done in a funny yet tasteful and non-offensive way) yet the movie not only steps on this slippery slope but slips and falls, hitting every offensive branch on the way down. There were NUMEROUS scenes with two men kissing (probably a dozen, in total), including the finale of this man-kissing extravaganza with will Ferrel openly making out with his rival Frenchman for no less than 30 seconds. Then they also make the gay person a villainous, retarded-speaking Frenchman with an at-first-funny-then-annoying-as-the-movie-goes-on accent that really got on my nerves. So basically whether you like gay people or hate them, you probably were offended by the over-use of gay humor.
There was also an awkward haliburton reference near the end, which no one really laughed at. I wish they would leave out political references in both this movie and Anchorman(which was hilarious, by the way) because IMO they both were unnecessary and didn't really have anything to do with the movie.
I laughed and smiled a few times, but overall this movie was a severe disappointment to me and the people I saw the movie with. It follows a cookie-cutter plot with cliché characters and actors delivering sub-par(compared to their usual) performances paired with numerous gay make-out scenes and frankly a lot of low-level humor. If this all sounds enticing to you, then I would highly recommend seeing this movie, in theaters, RIGHT NOW!!!! For the rest of us normal humans, I would recommend waiting until it's on Pay-Per-View and save the money or better yet wait until it is on TV or OnDemand for free.