One long, repetitive, painful joke

Rating: 3/10 (27 December 2007)

Good Lord, this was bad. I expected a lot more out of Judd Apatow, who has quickly become one of my favorite directors with the 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad. But this was just awful...it's basically another Will Ferrell movie gone bad.
John C. Reilly is pretty redundant as the lead role in this; pretty much anyone could have been inserted into the role of Dewey Cox and done the same job. He wasn't bad, but he wasn't particularly funny, either, and for a lead role in a high-expectations comedy like this one, that just doesn't cut it. Doesn't help that the supporting actors were all just terrible, to say the least. The whole Beatles scene is just retarded - I think my IQ dropped a minimum of 10 points after watching a bloated Jack Black repeatedly tell us "I'm Paul McCahtnay" - it's an SNL skit gone bad. Even Tim Meadows, one of my favorite comedians, derives ALL of his comedy from the same joke in the film, which is funny the first time you see it, but not the sixth time. Which leads me to my next point...
Repetitive is really an understatement in describing this film's humor. Jokes that aren't even that funny to begin with, such as a jackass father repeating "the wrong kid died!" or Dewey tearing sinks out of the wall in his fits of rage, managed to recur throughout the film and made me sigh in disappointment.
If you've seen Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory, or any VH1 Rock Documentary, then you've seen this movie. I'm aware that the movie is supposed to be a complete spoof of these typical "rise to fame, fall from grace, then regain your glory" films, but its delivery was just awful. Whereas a film such as "This Is Spinal Tap" managed to cleverly spoof the genre, "Walk Hard" is not clever in any way, which is critical to a film like this. Do yourself a favor and skip this one