Walk Hard, Hard. Down life's rocky road. Walk bold, hard. That's my creed, my code. Walk Hard is a funny tongue-in-cheek movie, worth checking out.

Rating: 6/10 (22 July 2016)

Considering how bad, the parody genre has gotten as of late. I was blown away by how good this movie was. It's so good, that somewhat belongs in the same levels of filmmakers: David Zucker, Monty Python and Mel Brooks's finest works. Directed by Jake Kasdan, and written and produced by Judd Apatow. 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' tells the story of the hard-knock life of musician Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) from his rags-to-riches beginnings, his raise as a megastar country star, his struggle with drug abuse, and his redemption in his later life with his later-wife, Darlene Madison (Jenna Fischer). If this story sounds very familiar. The plot echoes the storyline of 2005's Johnny Cash biopic, 'Walk the Line' and 2004's Ray Charles biopic 'Ray'. While, Walk Hard mostly heavily references, those two films, there were also a various amounts of other biopics that the film used as inspiration, such as 2004's 'Beyond the Sea', about singer, Bobby Darin and 2007's 'I'm not There' about musician, Bob Dylan to name some. The film also includes elements of the lives and careers of Roy Orbison, Glen Campbell, Jerry Lee Lewis, Donovan, James Brown, Jim Morrison, Conway Twitty, Neil Diamond, and Brian Wilson. The film portrays fictional versions of artists Buddy Holly (Frankie Muntz), The Big Bopper (John Ennis), Elvis Presley (Jack White) and the Beatles: Paul McCarthy (Jack Black), George Harrison (Justin Long), John Lennon (Paul Rudd), and Ringo Starr (Jason Schwartzman). Additionally, some real-life artists were filmed, playing themselves, including Eddie Vedder, Jewel Kicher, Lyle Lovett and Ghostface Killah. In addition, the film feature several musical styles such as the late 1950's R&B movement, the early 1960's California Sound, the late 1960s Vietnam War Protest Folk-music style, the early 1970s, Space Oddity and last 1970s punk rock movement. Despite the humorous approach to the music genre, the film was so well crafted, that the parody music feature for the films became big hits on their own right. Songs like 'Walk Hard', 'Take my Hand', 'Guilty as charged', "Let's Duet' & others was nominated for both a Grammy and Golden Globe Award. Songwriter, Michael Andrews and Jon Reilly recorded 40 original songs, which 33 are featured in the movie. All with different music styles. That's pretty impressed. Not only that, but John Reilly sang most of the song. Who knew that John Reilly, not only was a gifted comedian, but also an amazing singer!? I didn't see it, coming. However, Singer Angela Correa did had to provide the voice of Darlene Madison Cox as Jenna couldn't pull it off. Despite that, she did pretty well for the role, that she was given. Honestly, most of the actors in this film, were funny in their own right. As a biopic parody, the movie is very funny. It hit every funny bone for me. Very few misses. If the movie had any faults; I can say, the later unrated version is very disappointing. Adding more juvenile gratuitous nudity and gross sight toilet humor doesn't really make your movie, any better. It's not fan service that most people want to see. Even women and gay people might think it's too much. Also, some of the jokes were a bit tasteless like the whole kid getting killed by a machete fight. Making fun of Johnny Cash's real-life boyhood tragedy is a bit much. It's somewhat offensive. It's shock value that really fails to gain any point of reaction than annoyed. It really doesn't add much to the film that the semi-smart dialogue double sexual entendres hasn't done better. If anything, it just makes the film plot go slower. It's no wonder, Sony felt like to cut over twenty four minutes out of the original film, when it was released. It really did make the film, seem way too long. In my opinion, just go see, the original version over this. Other negative elements of this film is how the movie doesn't really bring anything new to the table. The movie relates way too much on being clichés to be, really that funny. It felt a bit tiresome at parts, because it's predictable. It's so unlike the other comedy music films like 2003's 'A Mighty Wind' or 1984's 'This is Spiral Tap' that relies on some music movie clichés, but also brings something new to the genre to work with. Those films were a little more sophistical with its humor. You really don't know, what's going to happen in those films. Overall: Because of that, I felt like 'Walk Hard' could had been something, really great, but in the end, falls somewhere near above average. Still, I can highly recommended, seeing this film.