Most overrated film of all time

Rating: 3/10 (19 July 2010)

I saw this for the first time the other day- I've been wanting to see it for ages, and saw it going for £3 in HMV (the 'up to 11' edition DVD). Having heard about how it's the greatest comedy film of all time and how it's an absolute classic, I was keen to have a laugh and see something I've never seen before; and, at risk of being flamed by fans, it SUCKED!! My first warning signs came when there's a whole minute and a half of a black screen before the menu, with four monotonous voices talking about how the screen is black. It wasn't funny, not even for its 'WTF factor'!
I managed to chuckle about three times (the stonehenge bit, the 'trapped in the pod' bit, and the tight trousers scenes- three funny moments; three stars. That's generous) over this incredibly short film, but the entire film was the exact same joke (that they're idiots and they're not very popular) played out over and over again. I've heard that 90% of this is improv- and it FEELS like improv. Poorly done improv. I've done improv work on stage before- an idiot is by far the easiest character to improvise for, because you can be as slow as you want, and you just have to say random stuff and pretend you don't understand things to get laughs. A 13 year old could come up with better lines- when I was in primary school, I was pretending to confuse 'sexist' and 'sexy'. The best bits by far were the scripted parts- the concerts and such.
However, this film has loads of fans, so I can only deduce that these are people who saw it when it was new, and it just hasn't aged well. I've seen almost all of the gags done elsewhere- Spinal Tap probably did it first, but other shows/mockumentaries do it better. The worst parts are plodding scenes of inane talking that leave you confused, wondering if what you just saw was supposed to be funny or not. It's not that I 'didn;t get it'- I got the jokes, they just weren't that funny- far too obvious for my liking. There was no subtlety in it at all- what you see is what you get. There's no plot to speak of, but a series of gags crudely stitched together, with more cul-de-sacs and pointless story arcs than your average episode of Family Guy.
Maybe it was the hype. Maybe I was expecting too much from the 'greatest comedy of all time', but I absolutely hated it. There really is nothing more to it than the clips you see on TV and reviewing programmes!
The bottom line- if you're a fan, great! Enjoy it! But if you're a noobie, AVOID!